


Peroxide (Peterick)

by CryingKilljoy



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Bands, BoyxBoy, Ferard, Frerard, M/M, Pete and Patrick (Fall Out Boy), Peterick, Ryden, Rydon, fall out boy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-21 11:17:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 49
Words: 83,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6049603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryingKilljoy/pseuds/CryingKilljoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete is rationing his pills.<br/>Patrick is cleansing himself with peroxide.<br/>Both are in danger of themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I made the cover before I knew what I was doing but it's okay now

There are certain sounds that sparks thoughts, thoughts that cause speculation of death and happier times, thoughts that come to us as naturally as a breath, but what we breathe is a falsification and a lie. What we breathe is the silence, the inexplicable pounding of black in a screaming room, and it disguises itself to masquerade as the tapping of rain in the window of a childhood home, so that's all we believe, because we are in need of a consolation.

The material we comprehend is nothing real, nothing that provides life or comfort, but we demand it to do so, because sounds are extroverted miracles that rescue humans from themselves, from their own papery thoughts, and perhaps the world will recognize the irony eventually.

And I never heard something quite as shattering as the gunfire on a battlefield, because it is born from the desire to murder to prevent more murder, and we weave that contradiction obliviously. We are falling out of line for an expectation of change, and we are fighting monsters that we cannot see.

With that idea, I can't help but wonder if it would be more accurate to say that this is a war against ourselves.

These matters make me wish for suffocation, for this image of joy is so skewed that it is meaningless to the blatantly introspective.

If I die, I want my passing to be narrated by the whisper of a tragedy that was never actually a sound at all. If I die young, that is. We're all destined for the grave, especially now.

For during this time, the things that we see are black and white — sometimes, that is quite literal — and we are convinced that a reformation is among us, but we refuse the prospect physically by not putting down our weapons.

When we are at a loss, when unbuttoned uniforms pinned on the deceased are scattered around, when the blood of our victims paints the meadow that used to represent peace, we continue to hold blades to our comrades' noses to check for breaths of what we come to understand as nothing significant.

And just like that, we are dancing with death again. The knife could slip, could cut, could kill, but it doesn't, even through trembling hands, and we sometimes applaud ourselves for remaining steady amidst the chaos, but we know deep down that it wouldn't matter if we did falter, because a massacre such as this does not pick the prettiest flowers in the garden — no, it steals with the sweep of the wind those who could not hold the blade still, those who were either brave or cowardly, but we observe no distinction once we brush past sentimentality, a chemical that poisons and warps even the greatest minds.

We have nothing but hypocrisy on the terrain, but we do not act on it, and perhaps we could've done something about it before it was too late, though we are already lost with the sounds that we used to know; and we position the knives once more, only to find that our mistake has become a tragedy that we cannot resolve.

Then, we understand the silence.

There are multiple sounds flitting along in my realm, apparently, swarming around my head like a mass of bees honing in on a flower — though I wouldn't describe myself as such a gift of nature — and it would seem that my amygdala hopes for me to list them all, or else suffer the wrath of my own mind's power. I've never submitted to the pain, not yet, just complied; there's still time to learn what kind of danger I will encounter, however.

The tapping of my pencil on paper is among the noises clinging to my eardrums, and it's the only one that ceases temporarily, its amplifier scratching a bit of the parchment with a witty idea before returning to its prior duty of monotony. I'm astonished that it doesn't grow tired of the bore.

What an obstruction of freedom that is.

Occasionally, fright fills my chest up to the brim, spiking my stomach with its overreacting spears at the shrieking of the swing-set rocking back and forth without previous warning. Vigilance is a waste, primarily when it is constant, which it is, in my case; I learned nothing from the precautions provided by parents and guardians, for it happened to turn the tables of my emotion control.

Everything is hectic now.

Then, fleeing from the inadvertent introspection of the swing-set analysis, there's the gentle, the cliché, the start to every story written by an inexperienced collector of words, such as myself, and that's why it fits.

The caring breeze floats along like a lark in summertime, greeting every tree obscured by the masses of dirt and unfinished playground equipment, but they never dare cross me.

Maybe it's the peroxide in my hand. Or the suffocating pencil within my fingers. Or the paper stained by hydrogenated liquid. Maybe it's just me.

Noting on the bottle in my grasp, it seems like a cruel irony that my hair is peroxide blonde — been called out on it, too, by uncaring psychologists that have been furthermore discarded for my own well-being — but perhaps I should be more concerned with things other than the coincidence of my compulsions and physical appearance merging together.

My current psychologist tells me to exfoliate my skin, moisturize it with some sort of lotion that's supposed to be healthy for you, but it only stands on my shelf, stationary and smirking, and the peroxide burns of desert feelings remain.

So, in a way, I presume my compulsions and appearance aren't so different, after all. They both chase each other into homicide.

And the final sound, one that isn't regularly droning on, jumps into existence in the form of a text from none other than the art geek I call Gerard Way.

My fingertips drag at the screen, tapping all around and unlocking my phone in a delayed movement — I keep a password on it, alleviating the unbridled paranoia in some shape — and the bubble of words appears in front of my face.

Hey, Patrick. How are you doing today?

I smirk. Gerard always asks me this, like he's afraid of offending me, which is quite difficult when I'm wrapped inside myself. I'm not nearly as harsh on the outside.

I'm fine, I guess. What's up? Don't say the sky.

After a few seconds with no response, my legs become jittery, bouncing around with nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, nowhere to be free of the tingling sensation and the panic coursing through my blood.

A moment later, though, the stress is diminished.

I'm stuck at an art show, but my mom told me to pick up Mikey from daycare. I consented, of course, but didn't realize that I had this until it was too late. Can you please bring him back home from Belleville Development Center? It's okay if not (I can get Ryan to do it).

Usually, I hate communicating with people, whether that's by talk, text, or call, but there's something about Gerard that I love, most likely the patience he has with me.

Yes, I comprehend that my anxiety will prohibit me from declining the offer, but he presented it to me, anyway, and I know him well enough to recognize that it's sincere.

Yeah, that's all right. I can get him. Do you need me to pick up anything for you on the way?

My mother says it's always rewarding to be overly considerate. Somehow, I don't quite believe her, even if I should, even if I'm abiding by her rules.

No, but thank you so much. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this, Patrick.

I heave my bag over my shoulder once introducing my possessions to it again, peering down at my phone and texting with one thumb as I walk.

Art geek.

I discover no response.

~~~~~

"There are a lot of children here," I find myself whispering as I slide from my bike. My eyes are expanding in shock at all of the tiny humans circling the room of the developmental center, possibly destroying everything in their path as if they were a formulating tornado.

I'm just about to turn around and leave in a fit of nervousness when a boy in a shadowed green apron, soft brown eyes set into his hollow face, catches my gaze, and...smiles. Why would anyone be smiling at me? Did I do something wrong? Do I know him from somewhere?

Snap out of it, Patrick. Psychologists don't like these outbursts.

He beckons me towards the entrance, and for a moment, I question whether or not he's addressing me, but I eventually step inside, leaping at the slamming of the door behind me — and now the mob of children attacking my every limb.

Abruptly, like being swept away with a storm, my lungs fill with water, but no one notices it besides me, and that's the scariest anecdote of this ailment — they cannot hear me scream.

The world is so fast-paced, I come to understand, and not even the inexplicably sympathetic expression of the guy in the apron can rescue me from the water trapping me inside a place of suffocation. My psychologist says it's a symptom of anxiety, the illness he claims I have because of an event that transpired so far back that it shouldn't mean a thing — two years is a long time.

But then again, I'm still washing my arm with peroxide.

"Who is you?" one chatters, looking up from his grip on my leg to observe a countenance crumpled with fright.

"Why are you moving so much?" another says, child-talk for, "Why are you shaking?" which sets me on edge; I don't appreciate confrontation, even if it's explicitly innocuous.

"He's just so excited to see you," the worker chimes in, moving from behind the desk and shooing the children away. "There's a set of building blocks on the floor that you can play with. I need to talk to this nice man for a moment. Is that okay with you all?"

Without responding, the kids dash over to the set of blocks, flinging them at each other or building something worthwhile, crying when their friends knock over their creations.

A small being approaches, throwing his hands in the air and shouting, "Bob is being mean to me!"

"Ray, Lou will be here soon," the boy addresses a kid with a curly mop glued upon his head. "You can talk to the other children while you wait, all right? Just stay away from Bob if you don't like him, but don't be mean back. That's not nice." He smiles, baring his perfectly white teeth and mildly pushing the kid back towards the crowd.

"W-wh-where is Mikey?" I am capable of choking out, my entire body continuing to quiver as the boy awaits firmly.

"Hey," he consoles me, brushing a hand over my arm, to which I shy away. He seems to take the hint, replying, "Sorry about that. Just try to take deep breaths, yeah? It'll calm you down."

"T-that's what the psy-psychologists all say." I stifle sobs for a second to release a half-hearted laugh; at least I'm trying.

"I've had enough of them," the worker admits, but undertones of melancholy lurk in his typical joyful tone. He sounds like my kind of person — messed up in the head, recoiling from any thought of interaction, buried underneath impenetrable layers of gloom, and even if I've only known this guy for a few minutes, I want him to make it out alive.

I've decided that he, at least, should receive a genuine outcome.

"Y-you've b-been to a psychologist?" I stammer, green eyes circling the room in case some secret agency is spying on us; fortunately for me, there are no cameras here.

It seems like the first place where I've been sure about that. Even if I scan the room with a thorough precision, I can never be sure that there isn't someone creeping up on me (they could find a way), but I somehow trust this guy. He wouldn't spy on me, would he?

I predict the paranoia will stage its entrance if I see him again. Right now, it's dormant, but it's more perilous that way. Alertness is ubiquitous.

"Loads of them, and they all messed me up more than I had been previously." His glare drops low like a weighted branch but eventually springs back up to meet my own. "Anyway, Mikey is over there, the only kid with the glasses. Kind of funny, you know, always wearing them on the tip of his nose like a librarian or something."

I nod, hastily refreshing my memory of Mikey's image before the boy in the apron asks me more questions about him.

The worker places a finger to his lips, his focus drifting back and forth between us. "Say, is he your brother? You don't look much like him."

Obviously, but why is he so nosy? Humans, always trying to grasp every piece of information they can, even when it's none of their petty little business. Frankly, I would enjoy dwelling in a cave until I grow a beard the size of my shin and my hair withers into a shining bald spot that likely hosts the manger of Jesus on top. Anything to isolate myself.

Not many people welcome the concept that misanthropy is my force, though — and where would my peroxide be in a cave?

But he's right nevertheless. Eye color, hair color, and facial structures are all off. While we both lean towards the feminine terrain of features, Mikey and Gerard possess thinner proportions, almost like a feline.

"N-no, he's my friend's brother, who is currently at an art show. His name is Gerard."

Ugh. He didn't need to know that. Why am I like this? Constantly spewing out irrelevant details no one cares about.

"Patrick, no one remembers what you say after the maximum of an hour, all right?" Dr. Saporta, my psychologist, finds pleasure in reminding me. Does he think I'm interested in his stock phrases? Not much.

My mother says I shouldn't be so overbearing towards him, that he's one of the most versatile therapists she's ever met — not that she would be familiar with many, seeing as she's as neurotypical as it gets; that, however, brings you into suburban mom life, and that's the downside of a clear brain — but it's not my duty to like people. In fact, I am most often fueled by the doctrine of "guilty until proven innocent". My mother also says I shouldn't run by that standard. I don't really mind.

"That's an interesting name," the boy comments. "I like how it flows, the capture and release of the geh sound, then the fierce flick of the rawr bit, like the tad of courage we can never have, and the abrupt end of the rd on the tail of the word."

The tad of courage we can never have. It scares me. He knows. He's been watching me, hasn't he? He is aware of my anxiety, because he planted cameras, and he's following me around.

I need to leave.

Habitually wiggling my fingers into my bag to draw out the peroxide, I stop short, pivoting my head towards an advancing Mikey, a building block held to his hair with some germy kid's saliva — I have to force back tears.

"Patwick?" he chirps. "Is you?"

"Yeah, Mikey, it's me," I respond, crouching down to meet his gaze but tucking my arm behind my back so that he can't touch it any longer. I abhor the way it makes my skin crawl, how it...breathe; Dr. Saporta instructed you not to potentially trigger anything, so snap out of it.

"Where Geewad?"

The worker swoops in heroically as I answer, picking out the building block with the protection of a paper towel, wiping it off, throwing it back into the heap of toys, and almost assailing a small kid with a premature fringe, but the apron boy doesn't say a thing to me, only observes.

"He's at an art show. You know how much he loves those." I smile, and Mikey mirrors my actions. "Are you ready to go home?"

Mikey's head bobs up and down rapidly, seizing my hand and pulling me towards the exit without properly thanking the worker.

I don't aspire to be consorting with people who have no perception of manners.

"Uh, I, um, thank you so much!" I yell as the bell cycles all around with the swaying of the door, and I am awarded with a sheepish grin from my new companion — amused, is he? What wonders that does for my stability.

"Be careful out there!" the raven-haired teenager returns, waving his hand in a gesture that signals the departure of any party in a conversational group. I'm not sure what he means. Am I prone to injury? Does he think I can't handle myself? Is someone being considerate for once?

Questions. Dr. Saporta doesn't like them.

The wind brings a chill of its own, disparate from the thundering collision of panic attacks, which has me retreating within my sheer jacket that has never done a thing for me in wintertime; my mother should invest in a new one, or at least a coat with puffier material.

Then there would only be one contingence to worry about.

We're gone now, though, but no matter how much I pray to forget the touch of the children, discard it like a scrap of newspaper, I still feel the burning, squeezing, choking sensation of their grimy fingers.

I need more peroxide.

~~~~~

A/N: hey wet rats how did you like the first chapter

if you did, vote, comment, etc. idrc

I haven't even finished outlining why am I doing this

current vibe: that little sob tyler does when asked who josh's best friend is

okay bye

~Dakota


	2. you think I fucking asked for this responsibility

Your home seems to be a mile away when you're lacking in hydrogen peroxide. Or time to use it. When Mikey's around, there's a certain itch that materializes in front of you, because he's still here, and he shouldn't be.

But I have the item to pour on myself.

The substance is a series of chemicals used to disinfect the skin, to treat wounds. So far, it's not working for me yet, seeing as I continue to experience the burns of my attacker's touch seeping into my pores, poisoning me.

The doctors say it's obsessive to worry about a sense that lingers for years, to possess the touch at all. I don't think it is.

Yes, maybe it isn't normal to maintain a growing supply of peroxide bottles in your bedroom, replacing the fantasy literature that previously stocked the shelves of the bookcase. Yes, maybe it isn't normal to take extended showers until your mother yells at you to get out, or you'll go bankrupt from paying for the water bill. Yes, maybe it's not normal to pour that hydrogen peroxide over your arm again and again where your assaulter grabbed you and never have it seem just right, but normal is boring.

But I suppose there's justice in saying that compulsions are too dangerous to stand for doing away with boredom. I ignore that justice every time my skin dries up from the chemicals.

Finally, Mikey's chatter draws to a close as the screen door on the porch bangs against the frame, as he steps inside after waving emphatically to me, but being wrapped up in my own thoughts, that event occurred almost ten minutes ago, and I have reached my home by instinct; my legs tend to do that for me, aware that I never pay attention to my surroundings.

My feet elevate to accommodate the height of the crumbling brick stairs, only coming into contact with the middle rectangle of each step to settle my raging mind, and I twist the knob — once left, once right — to greet the cordial aroma of lilac rushing around to tell me a story, almost like bubbly fairies in a film too laden with special effects.

It isn't time for this, Patrick. Get to the shower. Remove the touch.

"Right," I affirm to no one in particular — just sort of an indication to tug me back to reality — setting myself into motion to ascend the stairs, this time carpeted with faded white material.

The wood, hidden beneath a soft texture, creaks with even the minimal pressure of my toes, and I almost pause to apologize to it, but Dr. Saporta would disapprove, and I've had lots of people remind me that I've offended him far too many times for our relationship to be productive.

It seems like he's taking over my thoughts.

Don't say that. You hate paranoia, don't you?

Don't harbinger new ideas. Don't allow the compulsions to evolve. Don't corrupt your mind.

When I reach my door, I push it open with languid force — let's skip describing the ritual with the knob; I hate to think about it, and my friends have told me I've been getting better at keeping it under control — staring once again at the bookshelf of hydrogen peroxide across from my frozen body.

I almost forgot that one of the bottles was removed earlier, transported to the bathroom after the previous one dwindled, but it simply won't do. I can't allow it, at least not in its current pose.

Anxiously, I sprint over to the case, falling to my knees and adjusting the peroxide so that the division is straight down the center, like it should be if there's no immediate replacement.

"Fuck," I sigh, tilting back on my haunches. "Maybe I'm not getting better."

Yeah, you dimwit. You're planning to take a shower, aren't you?

"Leave me the hell alone."

Arresting a perfectly clear towel from its spot on my unpainted dresser — left that way so that it wouldn't be subject to any imperfections in the dye — I snap, "Shut up. You're not helping."

And neither are you.

"You're a hypocrite." I slide out of my charcoal trousers and fold them neatly to situate them in the square-shaped hamper, then proceeding with my crimson cardigan and grey t-shirt.

For once, I neglect the icky feeling of my shifting clothes.

"See? I am improving," I counter the voices in my head, but they don't answer. I earn a victory, and they suddenly become dismissive. Great.

Summarily after the last piece of ostensibly rough fabric has left my body, the towel fashions a mask for my skin to protect it from the acumen of the outside world.

"No one's watching you, Patrick," everyone says, but the voices beg to differ, and they do so with great theatricality, ensuring that I won't threaten them ever again.

With my head swiveling around in every direction to detect anyone's possibly prying eyes, I stalk to the bathroom parallel to my chambers, rounding the corner in a swinging motion as my remaining hand clutches the ends of the towel to construct a cylinder around me.

Instead of turning on the shower and acquiescing the water to beat down on my back like the drumming of rain on a rooftop, I delay to gaze intently into the mirror.

I haven't done this in a while, taken a look at myself, and the product is stupendous. How thoroughly my eyes droop into a pool of purple, into a bruise inflicted by none other than myself by postponing sleep and conceding the buildup of stress. How sharply my cheekbones model, throwing shadows onto the lower portion of the surface from their throne of elevation in regards to my face. How pale my skin has become, vampiric and reminiscent of Gerard's pallid complexion, as if a dot of red ink landing on it could be mistaken for blood running through snow.

And not once did anyone comment on it, but I now realize that they sure as hell must have been worried.

Am I dead? Is this why I look so harrowed, so gaunt? Did I die two years ago, when the concept of death was only metaphorical after my assault? Have I been living a life in hell, and is that why I contracted such a plethora of issues? Am. I. Dead.

"Leave it," I instruct, snapping my focus away the mirror as quickly as I formerly snapped a rubber band on my wrist to shoo away obsessions.

Twirling the handle of the shower in an action that reminds me of wrenches in a dingy handyman shop, water pours down in minuscule pellets that merge together to create a flowing stream perceived only by an outsider.

I abandon my towel by my ankles, hastily leaping inside the bathtub and closing the curtain behind me as a shield. As usual, my eyes scan the corners for any hidden cameras that may have been installed while I was running errands — you can never know, can never be safe.

As I explore new areas of the bathtub, the concoction of hydrogen and oxygen completely dampens my hair, infiltrates my skin, and this formula and the peroxide are the only two things of whom I enjoy the touch, so I permit their entrance.

Instantaneously, the grasp of the children fades away, swirling down the drain, through the sewers, soon on its journey into the ocean — or, in any case, gone from me.

By now, I've grown accustomed to the permanent kiss of fingertips on my arm, the sole junction that doesn't wash out and is only layered with the collision of other humans, though every time it shrieks, I am brought back to that one day...stop.

The shower is the most dangerous place for panic attacks.

Get the hydrogen peroxide, psycho.

I scowl. "I wish you would stop calling me that. It's incredibly ableist and damaging to one's soul."

Your fault, buddy.

"It's not my fault, though!" I lash out, but my hands extend to seize the peroxide anyway as my tone lowers. "It's not, okay?"

It's actually amusing, as I see it. You say that it's not your fault, but you still have to sit through psychologist appointments to mend yourself. Hah!

"Dr. Saporta is fine," I mutter, unscrewing the cap to the clear liquid, dribbling it onto a washcloth, and holding it away from the spray of water. "Sometimes."

Are you so sure about that, kid?

"Why do you address me as 'kid' all the time?" I begin to scrub my arm with the solution, the vigor of my deed reddening the skin, but I don't halt for something as petty as that; after all, I do this almost every day. "You're me, and I'm almost an adult."

If I were you, then you'd be able to control me.

Imposing a scarlet streak upon my body's textile, I retaliate, "Screw you, asshole. What if I don't want to control you, huh? Did you ever consider that?"

I consider everything that you consider, because I live inside your brain, but that doesn't mean that I am you. I get the advantage without the tragedy. Now isn't that a nice little package?

"Hardly," I deadpan. "I end up getting screwed over twice. Once by you, once by the inequity of this situation."

I've just avowed the water to hail down upon my back, too frustrated by the voice in my head's rambling, its brilliant counterattacks, but as soon as the rumbling sound waves of the garage door opening seek refuge in my ears, my fingers protrude from my by side to switch off the water.

Run fast, little boy.

I bend over to snatch my towel, tying it to my chest like a girl — though I'm a noticeably self-conscious boy — and sliding my hand over the light to rid the bathroom of luminescence.

My room seems like a mile away, when it is only about ten feet in actuality, but with a bound overestimated by my faulty impression, my feet plant themselves in front of my door, pausing to license my hands authority to perform its tedious ritual upon the circular knob.

At the very moment at which I enter my bedroom, a voice echoes from downstairs. "Patrick, are you all right? I heard a noise," it says, to which I scream, "Yeah, I'm good, Mum. A book just fell off of my dresser, is all."

Maybe you should take another shower to repent for your lie.

I consent.

This is by far the most time-consuming compulsion yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: when you're using your school google account and have to write shit like "sure as heck"
> 
> sorry about the use of "psycho" I really hate that word :/
> 
> I was trying to live up to my 3k word chapter, so I kept expanding this but only got to 1.8k i cri
> 
> the next one is going to be happier I promise uwu
> 
> current vibe: when matty healy and jesse rutherford did an interview together
> 
> ~Dicknoodle


	3. listen here little bitch

Exposure therapy was the worst decision of my life, but everyone who claims they are interested in my safety has concluded that it's the best way to get me over my anxiety of the public.

To a certain degree, it's not like they're telling me that it's just hormones controlling the chains around my mind, but that's attributed to the fact that I glare at most everyone, and they quite simply don't wish to interact with me; I don't blame them, to be honest.

I suppose the only upside is that I am able to wash down my medication with coffee, not some bland tap water that makes you hope to vomit after a few gulps because of how inundated you are by its deluge — and simply the fact that there is a upside, the mere shell of the concept, is comforting to the continuously anxious.

However, today is different, with the guilt flooding the chambers of my heart and accelerating its pounding, and at first, I surmise that it's instinctual, considering this is a coffee shop packed with people, but after one quick look at the counter, my hypothesis is immediately altered.

The boy from the daycare center. The boy with whom I messed things up.

"I'll just find another place to swallow my pills," I decide, turning my back to the register after drawing in a deep breath.

Before I can make it out the door, before the clanging of the bells is put into action, someone shouts, "Hey, man! What can I get for you today?"

I pivot sluggishly, a meek grin embracing my lips that perhaps suggests, "Kill me now," but my feet order me to march forward. "Don't say anything about marching, mind voices," I direct, knowing that they'll transform it into something correlated to the army and, as a result, the post-traumatic stress disorder Dr. Saporta swears I have.

"You're the guy that came in and asked about Mikey, correct?" the boy asks, draping a green towel across his shoulder. I notice, in addition, another emerald apron tied around his waist — does he wear that all day?

"Heh, yeah, that was me." I laugh awkwardly, shoving my hands further into the pockets of my ebony skinny jeans and rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet. That's what people do, right?

The worker's brows crease. "Hey, are you all good after what happened? You seemed kind of shaken-up."

Shrugging indifferently so as to not reveal my true emotions (Dr. Saporta says I'm too apathetic for my own good), I reply, "Yeah, I'm fine, I guess" — I squint to read his name-tag — "Pete Wentz."

For whatever strange reason, the peachy complexion of the boy's skin boils to the blossoming charm of a rose petal. Why is he doing that? Am I to blame? From all of those questions, my coating inadvertently reciprocates the action.

"So what's your name, then? We need to get on an equal playing field." Pete winks, and suddenly my rose petal metaphor is enhanced to the epidermis of flame.

"I-I'm Patrick Stump." The words begin as a stutter but are pulled loose with an ounce of confidence and a toothy smile from both parties.

Pete nods, gesturing to the menu pinned to the wall above him. "What can I get for you, Patrick Stump?"

Oh, shit. I was not prepared for this. We are really in a coffee store. Wow.

"You can take your time," Pete assures, throwing a curt glance behind me to scout out potential customers, who are, fortunately, nonexistent in the store. "There's no one waiting."

I release a bout of air, clear my throat, and scan the items to make it seem, at least to Pete, that I'm putting thought into this, when I actually order the same exact thing every time I wander in here — a cappuccino, with nothing else added so that the barista won't falter, so that I won't unintentionally make a scene and cringe about it for the next five years.

"May I just have a small cappuccino please?" I request in the politest of manners, utilizing my "mouse voice", as my former teachers prefer to name it, and Pete bobs his cranium up and down, sliding an ingredient cup into a machine and clicking the button on its blindingly blue screen.

"What school do you go to? I don't think I've seen you at mine, Belleville High." Pete leans his intersecting arms across the freshly wiped counter — probably where the green rag's purpose originated, though he hasn't bothered to relocate it from his shoulder to somewhere else (I don't work in a coffee shop, sorry; it's not like I know where things go).

"Uh, I'm homeschooled, actually." It sounds like the cliché response, at least from someone who quivers at the mention of sunlight, but it's nevertheless true.

"Oh, that's cool." Pete's voice is laced with despondency, as if he's somehow offended by my educational choice, but he eventually perks up after a second. "The people at school are actually just a bunch of shitkicking ass-clowns. Nice move."

My lip is adorned with the puncturing capabilities of my teeth, and my eyes curve all around to find something with which to engage a conversation. "Yeah, it was a nice move," I repeat in a failed attempt to spur the speech back to life.

The coffee machine chirps heartily — not enough to trigger panic, though — and Pete's hands migrate to entertain its needs, disposing of the wounded ingredient cup and chauffeuring my coffee over to me.

I tip my head in thanks, bracing myself for the scalding bite of the creamy substance and miscalculating the time at which it strikes my tongue, but I've been wielding the cup for far too long, so I return it to its spot on the counter with my mouth still bare.

Gradually, my taste buds dance with the texture of the coffee, and almost half of the cup has been dumped down my throat before Pete beckons sentences from his lips.

"Do you come here often? I need more friends to see while I juggle daycare and this job, besides that one old guy who always sits in the corner and stares at the entrance to the men's bathroom. Don't think he's a stalker, do you?"

I lower the coffee from my mouth, giggling. "Yes, I'm a regular, but why are you concerned with the affairs of this elderly dude?"

"A gay stalker," Pete interrupts, eyes trained on the man while the man's eyes are glued on his aforementioned location. "Same," he adds.

"You're a stalker?" My eyes bulge, and my drink narrowly avoids being shot out. People being stalkers is remarkably problematic for my "paranoia", or whatever it is that my mother says — there's nothing wrong with being cautious.

Cachinnating at my expression, Pete corrects, "No, I'm gay. That isn't an issue, is it?" His eyebrow heightens, predicting the worst.

My crown rotates horizontally. "No, not at all. I'm, um, polysexual, so I guess that's kind of in the same ballpark."

Pete is impressed.

Impressed, that is, until someone I assume to be his manager, a man with a bright maple beard and matching hair, strolls out from the back, requesting that Pete stop holding up the line, which consists of no one at the moment.

"Oh, sorry, Andy," Pete atones for his mistake. Is he scared of this guy? He doesn't look like he'd be scared by anything.

"That's Mr. Hurley to you, Wentz."

Pete nods, contrition projected onto his bronzed face, and he forages for a scrap of paper and a pen, both from his breast pocket, redistributing it to me. He taps the parchment twice with his finger — blessed is he who refrains from using odd numbers in movement — and I restrain the black utensil in my fingers.

"You want my number?" I clarify, skeptical.

Pete's head shakes violently in a vertical tract as Andy grows impatient.

He's going to exploit you, psycho.

"Go away," I whisper, digging the pen into the dry flesh of the paper.

Pete sinks his head low to lock eyes with me. "I'm sorry?"

"Nothing. I just talk out loud sometimes," I lie, wrapping up my scribing of the numbers. "Doesn't really mean anything."

Pete appears unpersuaded, but he's too intimidated by Mr. Hurley to question me any farther, so he captures the note and stuffs it back in his pocket.

"I guess I should be going now. I don't want to hold up the line," I joke, glancing behind my shoulder to find no one, as always, and waving goodbye. "I'll be looking forward to your texts." I provide Pete with the most adorable smile I can muster.

And as I toss my empty paper cup into the trash can, I stop short — I had forgotten to take my meds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: andy hurley is such a cockblock tbh
> 
> ALSO THREE CHEERS FOR POLYSEXUAL REPRESENTATION
> 
> and sorry for using the word "psycho" I actually hate to say things like crazy, idiot, stupid, dumb, insane, crippled, etc. in a derogatory or irrelevant way so I apologise if that made you uncomfortable
> 
> current vibe: when they say, "it has begun," in the shanara chronicles trailer
> 
> ~Dakeeznuts


	4. I love peroxide patrick more than I love myself

"All right, Patrick, you know the drill," Dr. Saporta says, his eyes fixed on the report that I have to fill out every time I visit him.

"The drill"? Is that some sort of PTSD joke? Make sure he recognizes it, Patrick, that lots of people who have PTSD served in the army, and do you know what's in an army? Drills. Call him out. Do it.

"The drill?" I stammer.

Dr. Saporta glances up from his paper briefly to restate, "Yeah, the drill. Like, what's going on in your head, Patrick?"

My jaw clenches. "Nothing."

"We both know that's not quite accurate," he laughs. "Tell the truth."

"What makes you think there's something going on?" I shift uncomfortably in the plush seat across from my psychologist's, but nothing is suitable for my restlessness.

"I know for a fact that there are voices conversing with you right now. Maybe it's a one-sided conversation, but they're present nevertheless." Satisfaction sails across his face, and I curse him for being so cocky, a curse manifesting in denial.

"That's a lie, sir."

Dr. Saporta holds up the report, waving it around in the air; I want to tell him to quit it, for the material is crinkling, but I refrain from doing so, because he'd use it against me — so much for versatile, Mother.

Command that man to stop.

"I'm the one with the diagnostic sheet, kid," Dr. Saporta parries, lenses stooping to read it. "Obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosis, social anxiety, autism, and post-traumatic stress disorder."

So condescending. Why don't you fire him?

"Well it seems like you did the drill for me, so there's no use and no outcome, except that you're a total cunt." I frown, counting off the items spoken from the diagnostic sheet without waiting for my psychologist's reaction. "Three anxiety disorders, one psychotic disorder, and the one people always resent. Fantastic. I hope you understand that I turn away from listing them for a reason, Doctor."

Silence that lasts a few minutes.

"Anything unusual happen since the last time we chatted, Patrick?" Dr. Saporta ushers out of his previously quiet form, intrigue dwelling in his mahogany irises, an intrigue that puts me off.

Without severing the eye contact between myself and my lap, I respond, "I met a new friend."

Dr. Saporta is taken aback, his brows scrunching in his labor to decipher my unusual words. "A new friend, you say? How...odd. I find you to be very anti-social, because, well..."

"You mean asocial, not anti-social," I correct. "You, of all people, should know this."

My psychologist chuckles. "Right, yes."

"I don't appreciate being compared to a psychopath or a sociopath," I cut him off. "Not because I don't have respect for the dilemma that is their personality disorder, but because it's imprecise, and I thought you would value my perfectionism, Dr. Saporta. Why would you say such a thing?"

"Forgive me, Patrick, for being so inconsiderate," the man replies sardonically, sarcastic eyes circling. "But it seems like you're regretting sharing the news about your friend with me, for you're diverting the subject."

My arms cross, right one on top to prevent the concussion of the other limb and the ethereal mark. "Only because you deplore the idea of me making companions."

Dr. Saporta leads his hands to the air in a defensive stance. "Now I wouldn't say that's exactly what I implied."

"I would."

Dr. Saporta's lips tie into a frown, fingers wind through his hair. "Patrick, I'm concerned about you," he admits, oxygen traveling a prolonged journey out of his lungs. "I know you're sick of hearing it, but in order for you to get better, you have to trust me." Sincerity highlights his features, but it only looks fabricated.

I play innocent, gearing my shoulders upward. "It's not my responsibility to trust you, Doctor. The contract said I can trust you, therefore it is not incumbent upon me to bow down to your profession."

Back slouching in dismay, Dr. Saporta groans, "I wish you wouldn't think like that, Patrick."

"And I wish I weren't so messed up in the head, but in case you haven't noticed, I'm in a fucking psychologist's office!"

Stillness, perpetuated by static gazes, where cinnamon swirls with chartreuse and never surrenders their bond for the ginger cradle of eyelashes.

"So...what's your friend's name?" Dr. Saporta finally asks, fiddling with his hands in the same way he told me not to — disgustingly ironic.

"His name is Pete," I bark, jaw snapped shut and aimed towards the cherry-stained door on my left.

A crumble of a grin fastens to Dr. Saporta's face. "And what is Pete like?"

"Different."

A pause of uncertainty.

"How so?" the psychologist pushes.

"I only have three friends — Gerard, Brendon, and Ryan, about whom I've told you already — but beyond them, I've discovered the bitterness of humans often, sometimes even during random encounters at the grocery store, in some common setting."

Dr. Saporta's quizzical expression indicates a lack of comprehension, but I don't allow it to dissuade me.

"But with Pete...he actually knows what it's like to grapple with your own life, and he's genuine about helping me through it. There aren't very many people like that, you know? He doesn't make me afraid, and maybe that's more competent than these trivial appointments."

At first, Dr. Saporta's visage was vibrant with fervor, but after my snide comment about psychology, it hangs limp with dejection. "Must you twist something hopeful into something that ruptures my science? We were going somewhere, and that's the problem, Patrick."

My brow tilts, throat hums.

"You denounce any kind of recovery once you detect it, then you whine about how you'll never get better." Dr. Saporta's fingers slither across the walnut terrain of his desk, eyes following to avoid meeting mine. "It's harsh, yeah, but you need to confront it."

Head raising to approach my psychologist, I bluntly state, "The voices have left me alone for the past few minutes. Don't you think that signifies at least a bit of comfort?"

"Did you ever consider the possibility that they've left because you're occupied with another topic, such as defying me?"

I smirk. "They would usually be cheering me on. They don't admire you very much."

Dr. Saporta is simply unaffected — he's familiar with not being liked. "Do they influence you to say certain things that you may not mean?"

"I thought you hated questions," I digress, perspiration suddenly saturating my palms.

"I hate your questions for their hypersensitivity. Answer mine — just this once, if you're not keen on doing so later."

I worry the inside of my cheek, acquainting my tongue with undiscovered textures as I tarry in deflecting Dr. Saporta's inquiry, but he doesn't relent. "Every day is a quest to purge the voice's reign, but the only expected consequence is me responding to them in public, when people can hear me," I confess. "Other than that, there's not much they do besides annoy me tremendously."

Partial truths are my forte, but seeing through them is Dr. Saporta's.

"I have a difficult time believing that's legitimate," the man challenges, retreating from his desk and reclining in his chair.

"Why do you never believe me? We're supposed to have a mutual agreement. You're supposed to be assisting me. Why aren't you assisting me?" My fingers burrow into the armrest, an aversion to a gigantic outburst, but it only feels like my muscles are going to break free and lather blood on my lap.

Dr. Saporta bounces from his position almost on reflex, arranging his hands to block me from advancing and potentially endangering anyone, including himself, though I doubt he'd give a shit. "Patrick, you need to calm down."

My extremities burn for the sensation of pulling my peroxide-riddled hair, and that is where they end up, though they remove nothing. "You're not going to be that clueless boyfriend in those mainstream high school movies. You're my psychologist — now fucking act like it. You should understand that my emotions are valid, but all you do is sit on your fucking desk and impart the knowledge that things aren't working out, and do you know whose fault that is? Is it mine for being so messed up, or is it yours for refusing to do anything about it? I'm your patient, and it's your job to mend my mental wounds, but you're pathetic, unskilled, and patronizing, and you're not aiding me in any way." My breath is jagged after my heated spiel, requiring shallow and immediate pulses of air, but I ignore the tingling to encourage the reaction of Dr. Saporta.

He untangles a sigh from his lungs. "I'm glad you disclosed with me how you feel, Patrick."

I ensnare a hand in my locks, pulling it free after a pinch of frustration. "Did you take away anything other than that? I'm not some subject with whom you try to test your psychology skills. I have moods, and I have depth, and I have everything that you do, even if it's blocked by the rubble of a broken mind, so give me a better fucking answer."

Dr. Saporta's face contorts distressingly, capturing a bubble of oxygen before continuing. "I'm afraid I can't do that, kid."

"Why the hell not?" My hands are back at my head again, yanking at the warped keratin molecules stuck to my skin, and Dr. Saporta's eyebrows are as taut as ever.

"Because you would never approbate it."

All I want is to kick something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: why did I make saporta such a bitch lmao (he comes back l8ter so get rekt)
> 
> also I used three synonyms for wood in this chapter: mahogany, cherry, and walnut, one of which was to describe eyes ???
> 
> current vibe: when MSI described their music as "electro-punk jungle pussy"
> 
> ~Da[n]k[meme]ota


	5. this chapter is as short as ur dick

Electricity pangs inside me from the argument between Dr. Saporta and myself, abetting my travel to the rickety swing set in the unfinished park, and perhaps it's a sort of empowering type of electricity, not that I would know would how positivity resonates in oneself, but it's so disparate from what I'm used to, and I can't establish this early whether or not I aspire to seek it in the future.

Regularly, a compression of the chest stops by for a visit, masquerading as my friend until it induces a simulation of drowning, and in that moment, I can't help but wonder if I am actually dying, if that would even be a problem at all.

Compression and depression go hand-in-hand, crouching down in a meadow and poisoning the flowers with their sickly touch as they concurrently intertwine fingers, and it is a sure thing that no one believes the powers of either, attributing it to hormones or being out of shape, when in verity, it is the process of decomposition at work, a process so foreign to certain people that they discredit it with the casualty of a step.

But now that I've broken free from Dr. Saporta's grip, if only for this week, depression and compression fall to their knees in strife, but they are silent, for they never surrender — they are only postponed until a future date when they are most unwelcomed — and they wait for a clarion call into action, into my brain.

For the time being, my feet bound joyously to the park, free of the weights pushing them down over and over and demanding that they rise again to encounter the same fate as provided before. For the time being, I take willful note of the birds' chirping, their jubilant melody about which no one knows. For the time being, I am content.

Is this what it feels like to be neurotypical? It's a shame they take it for granted, simultaneously making life troublesome for the mentally ill. The only difference, however, between the neurotypicals and myself is that they are oblivious to the pounding twin forces until they are no longer neurotypical, and they then describe this ordinance as the tables turning, when it is actually a whirlpool that they approached too steadily in their seemingly permanent, innate confidence; there is no tradeoff.

Once you go, you're trapped, and you're defined not by the altruism of your heart, but by the complexity of your mind, and that ideology runs like silk through one's hands, so natural and desired that it becomes second nature, and suddenly when the silk rips for one painfully neurotypical person, they break the fourth wall, and the tides sweep them up so that they might proclaim their injustice.

But do they vocalize the predicaments of the previously existing members of the bottom of the whirlpool? Very rarely do they learn. Woe is them, I suppose, for their unacceptable ignorance.

~~~~~

That empowerment lasts until a buzzing in my pocket jolts me back to the cruel reality of anxiety and heart palpitations, and the questions that Dr. Saporta abhors flood inside — but it's not like I care about pleasing him, considering I stormed out of his office fifteen minutes before our session ended.

Who is it? What do they want? Am I in trouble? Have they been watching me, and is that how they got my phone number?

When I check my device to see who texted me, panic drills into my chest at the display of the unknown number.

Hey, Patrick! It's Pete, if you didn't catch that already.

"How do I respond to this?" I shout to no one, pinkies jabbing into the metallic chain of the swings. "There's nothing I can do for him, so why is he texting me?"

My expression withers inside the desolate expanse of the park as my heart prepares for its horse race, visualizing how it plans to succeed before the actual threat has exposed itself, and I curse it for doing so.

Another beep flies from my phone, this time from a recognizable source.

I'm at another art show (did you know that there's a real critic here?), but this time I didn't tell my mother I would bring Mikey back home, though she still needs him picked up. Would you mind doing it? Brendon and Ryan are both busy doing something else, probably egging their neighbor's car, the one who sits on his lawn in a beach chair and waters his flowers with orange juice.

My mouth discharges a sigh, perverse to my already moving fingers.

Yeah, that's all right.

A few seconds pass.

Your aura suggests a lack of enthusiasm.

I giggle.

You can detect my aura? And I swear — I'm fine. I'm going right now, so don't try to stop me, Gerard.

I predict the vibration in my pocket is the eldest Way brother attempting to thank me, but all I can think about is how I'll get to see Pete.

I'm still not sure if that's a cause for nervousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I could've put this chapter in another but I outlined incorrectly so whatever
> 
> you get a v v clever title yeh
> 
> current vibe: when my school made a joke out of the fact that my principal likes to stalk people's computer tabs
> 
> ~Daknutts


	6. mikey's like three in this wtf

My bike creaks agonizingly as it catches its breath by the store located directly beside the Belleville Development Center, but I don't care for its petty games, for it's time to rush inside to greet the beautiful Pete Wentz.

For the first time, a genuine smile clings to my face without threatening to detach itself and move to some other person — who most likely has an abundance of happy days — but it doesn't feel like it belongs to me. It's itchy, uncomfortable, tight, not tailored to fit me.

Frustrating, how I reject anything optimistic. Dr. Saporta says we need to improve this impaired function.

It helps, though, when Pete's face mirrors my own and seems authentically thrilled to see me here. His hair is messier than I had witnessed it the last two encounters, perhaps because of the ordeal that is herding children and ushering them away from any dangerous activities — which may have grown even more risky since I came here on Tuesday — though his Hudson River eyes gleam brighter than ever before.

Immediately after the door swings open, bells clanking together in delight, Pete saunters over, a certain pep residing in the soles of his shoes. "So excited about my text that you came all the way over here to answer it?" Following my frightful stare, he laughs and adds, "I was joking, okay? You're fine."

It's obvious he doesn't comprehend how much terror that text caused me.

A steady flow of oxygen departs from my lungs, returning for an item that it forgot and leaving once more. "My friend — you know, the one I told you about earlier — has another art show, but his brother is still here, so he asked me to pick him up again."

Pete's brows draw together like curtains. "I'm starting to wonder whether or not you two have any friends beyond this mutual network that requires you to do him favors every other day."

Is that a fucking threat?

A corner of my lips raises slightly, molding later into a full-fledged glow. "I have you, don't I?"

Eyes crinkling as a result of an enormous grin, Pete acknowledges, "That you do, and as a celebration, would you like to go to the cinema with me after this?"

Shit. Movie theaters are of the worst places to be when you're as tense as I am, with the mobs of people, the compromising content on the screen, the general atmosphere. They haven't been safe for me since I was injured both emotionally and physically, but that disposition isn't so different from anything else.

They're a trigger for questions, such as, what if someone touches my arm? What if I take too long purchasing tickets? What if I have a panic attack in the middle of the film?

By the looks of it, you're having a panic attack right now.

I wave off the voice that just now returned after an hour of dormancy, studying Pete's hopeful expression. How can I let him down? He's done so much for me in the short time I've known him, but that'll all be ruined if I don't approve.

How I yearn for the days where a public setting was nothing terrifying, only one bit in a world of monotony. I used to venture outside often, talk to the neighbors, invite the urge to pet strangers' dogs. Surely that person isn't too far down?

Ditching your psychologist won't help you find it, though, you cowardly bitch.

Maybe I don't want to, then. I'd rather not return to Dr. Saporta.

"I have to take Mikey home, sorry," I surpass, guiding the fidgety kid over to me with a flick of the wrist, and he falls by my side a moment later.

"Is Geewad at art show?" Mikey inquires, tugging on the leg of my pants like a puppy tugging at a leash, to which I nod, gazing up at Pete.

"I can walk home with you, if you'd like, then we could go to the theater," the worker offers. Faith floats on his face but is soon punctured by doubt after I fail to respond forthwith.

Give him an answer before he leaves you, dimwit. He's already hesitating. You don't want to end up alone, do you?

"Y-yeah, that would be fantastic."

You just lied again, fool. Why aren't you repenting? It doesn't matter if you're non-religious. You still have to punish yourself.

This voice is a hypocrite, pleading for me to attend the cinema with Pete yet criticizing me for allowing this accompaniment. I wish it were gone, but it definitely wouldn't comply with that.

Whatever mixtures of uncertainty that hovered on Pete's face are now vanished, dropping residual pieces of pride and glee in its place. "Great."

Mikey's incessant fiddling of my fingers has me on the edge of smacking him, but that would be classified as child abuse and is, in fact, frowned upon in most regions, not to mention a real turn off — but it's not like I need to win Pete over, right?

Well he's taking me to the movies, so it's clear he can tolerate me for a few hours, which is unfortunately the best I can do in my situation of constant peril.

"Are Geewad at house?" Mikey babbles, bending my phalange in an action that would appear to be innocuous, were it not for the excruciating pain that it evokes.

Pete clasps a hand to his mouth upon the afflictive sight but remains silent.

Wincing, I sputter out, "Your mom will be there when you get home, but Gerard is still at his art show."

"Why?"

Why haven't all the children been eliminated from this earth? They do nothing but annoy, and we're overpopulated anyway. Why don't you taken it upon yourself to perform the obliteration on your own terms? You could finally be in control.

While the voice in my head is mostly correct, I don't award it with the pleasure of claiming victory. Who's to say it won't bother me further?

"Art is very important to your brother," I assure, deviating my location within Mikey's flesh prison, to which he responds by squeezing tighter on my hand.

"Is Peeh very important to you?" The kid's eyes are wholly transfixed on me, anticipating my shaky answer, while Pete's are sprinting all around so as to seem like he's uninterested, but a glittering expression suggests otherwise.

Mikey Way is only around four years old, but he's made me stop and think, and I'm not clear on whether or not I should be reassessing my life, my priorities, my decisions.

And yeah, I suppose Pete is very important to me, even if I've only known him for a few days, because what's even more important is to recognize who is good and who isn't, and with him, it's a constant reminder that there is at least one amiable person in this world, that I am not as alone as I had once thought, and epiphanies such as those deserve credit for being pivotal events in one's career. Those epiphanies are why I'm afraid to die.

Pete is why I'm afraid to die.

So I turn to my friend, whose neck is tilted away to mask the cardinal complexion of his cheeks, my mouth angled upward on one end. "Yeah, Pete is very important to me."

Finally, his gaze arrests mine, tears glimmering in his amber eyes, but his regard is tacitly expressed as one of gratitude and reverence.

"He your boyfriend?" Mikey chirps, gums shining through.

And this is where it ceases, though I must attribute to him a fine lack of homophobia and a replete supply of openness.

"No, sorry, Mikes. We have to draw the line somewhere."

Pete nudges me playfully in the shoulder (by some miracle, the bugs under my skin have fled), as if requesting that I consider the concept. "Aww, come on — I think it's cute."

Mikey beams at the cooperation with his idea, which is shut down by my next caustic comment.

"It might be cute, but it's not real, so no one will ever know," I deny, shrugging.

Pete gnarls his teeth into his lip. "Yet."

"Excuse me!" I scold, jokingly punching Pete on the shoulder.

I just don't want to tell him that it's entirely plausible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: ooh patrick's got a crush
> 
> *wipes tear* my bbz r growin up so fast
> 
> current vibe: when mikey way does current vibe on twitter
> 
> ~Dakota


	7. pete is probably jesus tbh

My step grazes the outer edge of the sidewalk, my glimmering eyes saluting my companion's. "Do you think there's anything worthwhile at the cinema right now?" I question, dismissing a pebble to frolic in the street.

"Maybe, but the local nerds are probably taking up all the seats for any superhero films." A chuckle unties itself from Pete's trachea, and his gaze falls to the pavement as we near the movie theater.

Reflexively, my vision zooms in on a hoard of people possibly gossiping idly about what they predict will transpire next in their favorite motion picture saga, as if it will matter until a year later, and though this random occurrence shouldn't be nerve-wracking for anyone, it is for me — I go to a psychologist to fix it after all, but recalling how I burst out of his office earlier today, it's a productive thing to realize that I'm not on track so far, perhaps more productive than anything our sessions teach me.

Pins of sweat carve into my skin, alerting my heart to deploy battle drummers to pound against its walls in a signal of an attack, and my brain spirals out of control right before me.

I wasn't equipped for this many people.

"Patrick, are you okay?" Pete's sudden awareness of my situation leads me to believe that he's probably the second coming of Christ, in my own atheistic way, as we gravitate to the lines of movie posters bolted to the wall once I regain complete consciousness.

The simple presence of one showing replaces the battle drummers with charming fiddlers, and my finger ascends to point towards the sign. "What about this one?"

Pete squints to read the title of the flick so far down the row, whispering with each syllable, "Suffragettes of Germany. I didn't know you were interested in feminism, Patrick."

My hands seek refuge in the stuffy pockets of my skinny jeans, folding my shoulders together. "Yeah, I guess. Do you have a problem with that?"

Pete's face melts into a smile. "No, not at all. I'm interested in feminism, too, and was actually really looking forward to watching this movie. It's even better now that I'm with you."

A stream of air humble for my circumstance topples from my lips, and I almost forget to recompense Pete for the grin with one of my own, but he's evanesced before I can interpret what he just said.

He's actually excited to be here with me?

"I'll go and get the tickets," my friend clarifies as his hip brushes the velvet rope used to contain customers, already long gone from me.

"We can split the pay," I call back, finally making use of my hands' position in my pockets to retrieve my wallet, but Pete waves it off.

"Nonsense! You're my date; this one's on me. I enjoy being classy."

A clump of phlegm pinches my throat at the use of the word "date", a word that's made me nervous for as long as I can retrospect, mostly because of the flexibility of dating in middle school — the last period I attended until I withdrew for my own home — and the pressure that came with it.

What does a date mean to Pete? What does it mean to me? What does it mean to other people? And perhaps most imperatively, what does it mean to Dr. Saporta, who is so immersed in my social life (or lack thereof)?

Stop thinking about Dr. Saporta so much, or at least long enough to pay attention to your "date".

Great, just what I needed, the voices to return on my may or may not be date. I was doing better (I swear), or at least that's what—

No. You need to stop, Patrick. He shouldn't enslave your thoughts.

Truth is, though, I'm worried about his judgement, whether I'd like to admit it or not. Yeah, maybe this isn't what my mother meant by becoming more intimate with Dr. Saporta, but it's a step away from isolation, and everyone could concur that such a thing is healthier than what I've been experiencing previously, so who really gives a shit?

Maybe you're overthinking this, dimwit. Anxiety is trouble, even if it's geared towards the right things.

"That's the most helpful thing you've ever said to me," I vocalize, head rotating ninety degrees in both directions to check if anyone saw me talking to myself like the psycho I know myself to be.

And now my voice's language has caught on. What a hypocrite I am, reprimanding the voice for addressing me that way yet doing it to myself.

Pete waltzes back a moment later, two tickets strapped between his fingers as if taking a smoke, and with some magnificent luck (Pete is Jesus, after all), notices my discerned facial expression, his soon reflecting mine. "Are you ready to find our seats?"

Passive approach. Are you sure you should trust him if he plays that way?

I'll always trust him.

~~~~~

Anticipation lingers in the air like the crisp scent before rain, but the only emotion suffusing my skin is panic, and by the way my legs jitter without ceasing, people have started to notice, though it's not like anything matters when your world is disintegrating behind your eyelids, especially because no one else can witness the atrocity with the same vivid apprehension as the host, and it becomes rather difficult to express feelings that way.

In a precarious attempt to calm me down, Pete's hand almost restrains my legs before pursuing the blazing fire in my eyes, which tells him off in the harshest of implicit forms.

Look what you did, psycho. You just ruined any chance of connection.

"I'm, um, I'm really sorry, Patrick," Pete murmurs, repositioning his hand to glide through his charcoal hair instead.

Absorbing a strong breath, I restore his hand's place to its prior location on my knee, and the timid person is now Pete, his beige eyes bulging from their sockets, as if asking, "Are you sure?" to which I nod steadily to glaze over my own ambivalence.

By the time a few seconds have ticked away on my mental clock, my body begins to tremble again with the intensity of the tectonic plates shifting — except beautiful mountains are born from that action, whereas panic attacks are born from mine.

This is where your ignorance gets you, dimwit.

Once again, Pete transforms into Jesus, cognizant of my silent struggle and unlatching his hand from my leg before I can complain about the quaking of my bones.

"You should take care of yourself, yeah?" Pete digs his head low, laboring to capture my contact. "Don't let coercion influence you to do things that you don't want to do."

I don't look at him, but only after thirty seconds do I realize that the shaking halted. He's won.

In a couple of minutes, dusk smothers the room, and I almost forget my anxiety. I'm really enjoying the "almost".

~~~~~

I was mostly inclined to survive the duration of this film, but anxiety fucks my life without rest, so why even expect a joyride? What is so special about right now that excuses me from the relentless nipping of dread in my stomach?

Is it the fact that I finally ventured to a public place after years of solitude? Is it the fact that I'm with Pete? Is it the fact that I had come close to a panic attack but didn't quite? Is it the fact that my mind is so keen on presenting me with demise?

The reality is quite simple: we build our own torture chambers around ourselves and scream when they won't let us out, and while we're inside them, the construction of a box comes into play without the understanding that they will soon become our coffins, so we suffocate over and over yet still expect the gift of oxygen that never comes.

We actually believe we're alive, but we place the blame of our following downfall on other people to remove the satisfaction of our cackling mind for tricking us once again.

And besides the cackling, I reckon there is a soundtrack that follows us humans throughout our life, and we are utterly unaware of how it proceeds. Sometimes it pulses, and sometimes it is silent, like the sickening verdict of a heart monitor, but no matter the pace of the song, we can never hear it until we first hear the shattering of our hope, when our mind is jealous of our body's ability to die, when it desires a demise of its own and is spoiled enough to receive its wish, fucking us all.

This music, however, fucks us again, and arguably more so. It tricks us into believing that we have achieved something tremendous, that our wait must've meant something to the universe, that our death is a small price to pay for the fluttering melody that becomes clear to us in a state of misfortune.

It dabs the tears from our eyes and passive-aggressively demands that we observe the light show that they make out of them, and once again, we do not say a word, only thank it for doing such a miraculous thing.

It is creating art out of our pain, and not once do we question it, but don't we humans deserve so much more than locked lips? Have we not experienced enough hell?

We injure ourselves without rest, and the music comes along, so we stop to listen to the beautiful sounds that are so disparate from what we know, but we never realize that the tune is not so different than the only other noise we hear — the clanking of chains wrapped around our soul.

We are not caged animals, and losing faith in thinking that we were imprisoned is what made us lose faith in the world, because life is working against us, and the music frankly wanted a job.

And maybe we expected something else from giving up, something other than the music, maybe our body's extravaganza of merciful death, but all we got was the annoying melody that warps our mind into thinking that it's long-lost and missed dearly.

Maybe our brains were trying to protect us, shut out the music until we die and can hear what it's been doing for us forever, but now that it's free, it knows no bounds, and our brain is struggling to keep it under control.

Then...it just stops. Our brain gives up just like we did, and the clashing of mind against music settles down to reinforce the dainty notes of our eternal soundtrack.

And as the end of our song draws near, we understand that none of this ever mattered, that we can put up with the music for a few moments longer until we descend into the ground. Suddenly, we also recognize that this is us giving up in the grandest of manners, and the last note crashes in like a wave, sharp and unforgiving as a knife.

Then finally, the music ceases.

I wonder if I'll hear it soon, for water now furnishes my lungs with a blood-stained tapestry at the sight of one simple event on the face of the screen.

People. Hands. Reaching. Arms. Shrieking. Silence. Assault. Pete's frightened face on my behalf, mine too stunned to react.

A snake twists around my chest, whispering in my ear and punctuating each word with a constricting force. "You're dying," it taunts. "You're dying. You're dying. You're dying." All I can do is accept it, given my situation.

Tiny knives clump together on my skin, and a metallic hand materializes out of the chaos of their endeavors. Before I can brush the assailants off, its fingerprints claw at me with a hatred whose origins are unknown, each patch of flesh a dagger set on murder.

"Patrick, snap out of it!" a voice pleads as spiders pry against my throat, who lose their balance due to the interminable convulsion of my body at the expense of Pete Wentz's energy.

Don't listen to him, psycho.

I can't breathe, and somehow, that's okay. My airways haven't been clear for over two rotations of the earth around the sun, and I've gotten used to drowning. It's all the same.

"It's okay!" I scream, kicking whatever I come in contact with and not bothering if it's my friend. "Just let go of me, Pete. Let me die, you godforsaken prat."

"I can't."

Then night slaughters dusk.

~~~~~

The next thing I know, a tangy object is forced into my mouth by a hand that cares too much to witness me flail around, but also a hand that has no regard for my preferences.

I can't see anything, my vision a blur in an emerald coat, but I identify the flavor of the candy as cherry, a scourge upon this land. I'm well-disposed towards the idea of spitting it out and studying its plummet onto the concrete, but Pete's already crying, and I promised my mother I would work on sensitivity.

So here I am, lacking in visual capabilities but toughing it up anyway, and I'm beginning to question if it would be more precise to characterize this affliction as my metamorphosis into an emotionless brick, but after an acute moment of contemplation, I decide it's not so offbeat from what I was previously and elect to drop the subject to focus on my teary companion.

"You didn't have to buy me candy," I attest, wrestling with the bonbon swooping through my mouth from each movement of my tongue.

"Yes, I did." Pete holds out another piece, this time grape, without smearing his tears across his skin to conceal them.

I slant away, crinkling my nose, even though purple is my favorite type.

My date forces a sigh from his esophagus, fitting his hands to the grooves on his hips and preparing to deliver a speech. "Your blood sugar drops when you're stressed, and from what I could tell, you were pretty damn stressed back there."

Don't give him the bragging rights by taking the sweets. He's just trying to lure you into a setting of submission.

As if that isn't what the voice in my mind does on a daily basis.

"So what?" I tug on the collar of my granite-flecked hoodie to scratch an invisible itch, and I honestly don't care if Pete can see through my fallacy, because I'm done.

Done with this movie theater. Done with Pete's willingness to assist. Done with myself. Done with all of it.

"I wish I had drowned." Each sound is crushed under my ravenous teeth, the rubble forming craters in Pete's visage as it smacks him head-on, and I can confidently say that he wasn't expecting such ferocious intentions from me.

Pete's brows cave in. "There was no water anywhere for you to drown in."

That's not the point, you dunce. You're almost as psycho as this other dimwit, and that's really saying something.

Hysterical giggles erupt from inside me, crowding the atmosphere of the cinema's awning. "Never really is, no. At least not to you."

My friend nearly touches me but retracts his extremities at the last second to instead ask, "Patrick, are you okay?"

Now dangling from the opposite pole, jagged breaths tear at my throat and demand sufficient diligence, but all I desire is to escape. "Just please take me home."

You're dying.

You know what? That doesn't matter. In case you haven't noticed, I've been dying for a while before today, and I just now lifted my head over the surface. I deserve to live. I deserve to breathe.

"If that's what you require."

The only thing I require is life, and having Pete Wentz makes it meaningful, but I don't want him to know that, so I only wind my fingers into the pocket of his jacket and sigh.

I survived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I didn't expect this chapter to be as long and as sad as it turned out to be, but there you go (and thank the corn lord for pete wentz)
> 
> In addition, PTSD panic attacks are different from regular panic attacks, so there's more likely to be a feeling of choking (which was included in here). Just wanted to clarify that, because PTSD anxiety is usually from a difference source than others.
> 
> current vibe: pretending to do things for aesthetic purposes yet capitalising letters sometimes (look I didn't even use punctuation tho I'm pretty badass)
> 
> ~Dakota


	8. why is there no capitalisation in the titles tho

When I asked Pete to take me home, I didn't destine him to stay, but I suppose it's a show for my mother — who always reminds me to make new friends, as if I leave the house on an occasion other than to take my medicine — so having him here isn't so terrible.

That, and I'm too anxious to tell Pete to leave, but after a warm welcome supplied by him to my mom, the idea of hosting him isn't as awful as I had once predicted, and demanding that he gets out is now becoming perverse to my mother's whims.

Not that I mind much, but someone could simply wink at my mom, and she'd be hooked and invite them over for casserole. I'm sure she has good intentions, though.

Stepping through the door, the sharp hiss of the winter air is stifled by the cozy aroma of apple and cinnamon, most likely from my mother's favorite soap, and the small woman scurries out of the living room to greet us.

"Patrick!" she squeals, piercing my cheeks with her fingertips and moving on to Pete without questioning why this strange boy is in her house. "I'm so glad you're here."

My head clicks into an angled stance. "Am I usually not?"

"Perhaps it's because you've brought someone new." The edge of my mom's rose-tinted lips curves towards the sky in an action of secrecy, and Pete reciprocates it for fear of displeasing her.

That forgetful mother of yours finally figured it out, huh?

I don't particularly enjoy my mother's company, but the voices are enough for me to adapt to a newer approach. This woman raised me, and though she might not have done a very good job at it, it's still becoming to be grateful.

"Yes, Mrs. Stump." Pete's grin flickers on and off as my mom's gaze rotates between us. "My name's Pete Wentz."

My mother's hand extends in the most elegant of fashions, and Pete's ironic nature would suggest that he would kiss it like he's also strutting around a sophisticated party, but he doesn't, only acquaints his skin with hers and shakes steadily.

"Will you be eating dinner with us, Mr. Wentz?" My mother strays from our party to boil water for a pasta dish and appear, at least to Pete, as though she has culinary expertise; I've been living with her long enough to understand that the best she usually creates is cup noodles, and even those are from the grocery store.

Pete's eyes flash in a signal to me, pleading for guidance, and I nod. He dispenses a jumpy sigh and answers, "If you'll have me."

My mom's wooden spoon swirls the sultry water around its pot absently, humming at my new companion's reply. "Wonderful. I'd be glad to have you."

After the response to Pete's proposition has been uttered, awkwardness slithers on the walls and poisons the prior mood of jubilance.

"I'll call you when dinner's ready," my mother proclaims by the time thirty seconds have gone by, taking a hammer to the unbroken ice.

My skull oscillates undeviatingly, directing Pete towards the living room until my mother finishes preparing the meal.

Hey, I guess it's not so bad to be trapped with another person, especially when it's Pete Wentz. For a night, though...that's a different story.

~~~~~

"What's with all the bottles of hydrogen peroxide?" Pete pauses his scavenging of my room to ask this simple question.

There is a plethora of answers to this. I could keep them because I get hurt a lot and need to clean up the wounds (though that probably wouldn't pass by him; he's already detected that I don't go outside much). I could keep them because a medical drive had an unwelcome surplus and decided to give them to my family. I could keep them because I like to do experiments. Many options to choose from.

My personal favorite is to say that I donate them to my old school's nurse's office, so that's what I tell Pete.

I'm not positive whether or not he believes me, though, with the quizzical character lurking in his eyes and the compression of his brows, but it'll have to do.

"What were you expecting?" I interrogate a tad too fervidly when Pete doesn't relent.

His nose scrunches up, head swerves to a lesser slope. "It's a little abnormal to stock your shelves with tons of hydrogen peroxide bottles, don't you think?"

"Why is that?" My hands cuddle my hips for protection against the anticipated confrontation in an attempt to reclaim some sort of dominance.

"First of all, you don't even go to that school anymore" — Pete's accusing irises contract under his furrowing skin — "and second of all, why the heck does the nurse need that many supplies? It's a high school, not a survival island."

That may be true, but only to a small extent, because as many deaths occur within that four-year range, if not more, and for the longest time, I was sure I would be one of them, and I was utterly convinced that I wouldn't be remembered, because like a survival island, no one cares, and everyone's only goal is to step on others to achieve the superiority that always lounges in people's teenage mindset, the kind that never comes yet doesn't matter after college.

But even so, I wouldn't stand a chance anyway, because I'm fucked-up, and other people recognized that and acted as though my life wasn't already hell just so they could terrorize me further, and I don't blame them, because it was somehow better than what I was doing to myself.

It's like a migraine, how you bang your head against the floor to block out the other strings of pain that are pulled tauter with each second, and now I'm kind of missing the company of those high-schoolers, because they were the ground that buried the migraine, and now they're absent, so the excruciating condition has returned.

Through this, they were living an irony that cackled on the other side of the mirror, not comprehending that they were doing the exact opposite thing that they intended, which is actually helping someone. For ages, they have been exposed to the barbarity that they have no objectives of denying, and they pretend to uphold that standard so obliviously that they don't know they're performing.

And I've always been against that falsehood, so I was punished for it, and now I'm homeschooled, so that survival island is but a memory, suppressed under other equally as malicious ones, and the students have moved on with their lives, enjoying the haze of being a junior, and I'm here, also a junior but defined by different means, and the distinction is clearer than before.

So if high school is a survival island, contrary to what Pete argued, I was killed by my opponents long ago.

"Why do I have so many bottles of hydrogen peroxide in my room?" I reopen the discussion, molding a canteen of the substance to my fingers. "It's because you often get wounded on a survival island, and you need something to dry up the blood."

A sense of gloom pokes holes into Pete's visage. "And this is it?"

I smirk. "This has always been it."

~~~~~

Pete laces a noodle around one prong of his fork, not caring to do anything with it, just staring at me as I narrate a fable of the last time I went outside before meeting the person who's sitting right across from me at the table. His gaze is substantial, entranced by my unassuming words and caught so thoroughly in my eyes that I'm not certain a knife could separate the connection, but I don't aim to try, though it grows worrying after a while.

Why is he looking at me like that? Did I say something wrong? Is he actually appreciating my presence? How could that be so? Why am I so whimsical? When was the last time I faced reality?

Silence, or you'll mess up the story, dimwit.

My mother's focus is not nearly as fixed on me as Pete's, but it slides in at a close second. Part of me genuinely thinks that she's interested, but the more practical part knows that she's just searching for an excuse to have me down here, and because I waste all of my time huddled in my room, tales such as these don't drift into her ears as often as she would prefer.

My voice halts suddenly, for a reason not yet deciphered, and the surrounding citizens beg me to go on in a numerous amount of expressions — puppy dog visages, clinquant irises, backs hunched by the decree of intrigue gathering in their complexions.

Why do they care so much? Is it a cruel joke, the vindictive punch-line being that I no longer go outside?

You think so negatively. That's why you're a psycho.

I continue, not because I truly desire to do so, but because I'm endeavoring to prove the voices incorrect.

Standing up for myself is the sweetest revenge.

~~~~~

My mother's nails caress the linoleum surface of the counter, an act that she once described as a nervous twitch, so naturally, panic traipses through my heart. A prolonged moment drags its feet through the sand before she starts. "Patrick, I'm not trying to criticize your choice in friends, but..."

Oh, here we go.

"Are you sure Pete will help you get better?" Her expression is palpable, her eyes shadowed by the nearing storm crawling by the windows.

"Why are you so concerned with my friends? I thought you were all about getting me outdoors." It comes out more defensively than I had hoped for, but I can attribute that to my emotions constantly dangling over the edge.

Pete's vision never falters from his spot near the dishwasher, aggressively caressing plates with a sunflower sponge, so it's plausible to say that he's not listening, but even so, the omnipotent feeling of paranoia does not cease; it never does.

My mom's tone scales down by notice of my safety measure. "I wasn't quite saying that I don't want you to get outside, but I'm just taking precautions. I'm sure Pete is a wonderful guy, but if you become incredibly dependent on him, that's not good for either of you."

"What makes you think I'll become dependent on him?" Residual pieces of my volume dance in Pete's ears, but he doesn't turn around to address them.

"Nothing." Patricia Stump's lips fold into a thoughtful pucker, closing the matter.

Fingertips wind through my hair as a gust of wind leaks from my lungs. "You're lying, but you're my mother, so you have to. If you were really interested in me getting better, you wouldn't be so damn ambiguous."

She doesn't respond, pondering through the clatter of the dishes how her own son became so messed-up, and honestly, I have no fucking idea, but I roll with it like everyone says I should, because at least I'm not living on the streets, and at least I have a "caring" parent, and at least I'm not dead, but I frankly don't accept settling for the things I do have, because the things I do have mean nothing significant when you look at them closely, and it's time someone other than me understands that — but you know what? No one will, because I'm isolated within myself, drawing blankets across my back and hiding from the world, and once again, I'm the aforementioned messed-up son, and now even my own mother knows it.

My mother's face echoes despondency in the way it declines so completely. "I'm sorry, Patrick. I'm just trying to be a good mother."

"Don't make this about yourself," I snap, and she reels back in surprise. "Sorry, I...I just want to have a good night with Pete, okay?"

My mom nods.

"Thank you."

Pete's body swivels to approach us, shooting his hands into his pockets stiffly. "I finished the dishes."

My mom's focus sweeps back to me, as if confirming something. "I'll be going out soon to get groceries and...do other things, I guess. Be good."

A devious look wades in Pete's eyes. "Sure will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: that last part lmao
> 
> I go to a private school so idk what happens in the stereotypical high school but I've read enough fanfiction and met enough new students to understand that it's probably hell so sorry if that section about high school was off
> 
> current vibe: when this guy told me that my brother was gayer than me
> 
> ~Ducknoot


	9. fucking a cactus would be a better alternative than this

Everything was going fine — or at least as fine as things go for someone like me — until one point of pressure wrecked it all.

Pete and I were enjoying our time while my mother went out, relaxing by the singing flames and maneuvering board game pieces to advance our plans, and our actions were tender amidst a world of judgement, so I was prepared to cherish the moment, but I should never expect such things from myself.

I'm sure Pete didn't plan on contacting my arm — accidents happen; everyone knows that — but it still retained the same impact. Like people tell one another, an apology doesn't heal a broken leg.

To a normal person, someone touching your arm would be nothing momentous and would probably be brushed off with a brisk "oh, sorry" before they go on their merry little way and forget about it five minutes later.

But I am most definitely not a normal person, so here I am, crunched on the floor of the bathroom after excusing myself with the lie of needing to use the toilet, a half-empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide quivering in my hand as it bleeds onto my arm, and I frankly couldn't care less, because this is what I've been doing for two years, and it feels as natural as swallowing a breath. Ceasing the action would be the more dangerous option, but it's taken a while to explain that to psychologists without them promptly interjecting to assign a cavalier diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The peroxide deposits an unquestionably hospitable aftertaste, and that's one thing that I need after months of neglect. It's presented itself as my one true friend, even going so far as to challenge the voice in my head, and I've acknowledged it to be accurate. Other people are wary about the subject, but they clearly haven't been living inside my mind for long enough to determine what I do and do not need for myself.

So with that mapped out, I observe intently as the clear substance dribbles out of its bottle, tap-dancing over my skin as it supplies parting gifts of its own body on its way to the next area. The image is so vibrant that it hoists a smile onto my chapped lips, if only for a moment, before it bustles away at the sight in the mirror procured when I stand up.

I'm the everlasting vampire figure that I witnessed the last time, but it's the vampire figure with auspicious foundation makeup amassed on my face. I look somehow happier, but all I desire right now is to wipe it away, strangle it in the drain of the sink to discount its existence, and I almost pound through the glass to trap it once the structure repairs itself, but I wouldn't want Pete to go search for me at his note of the noise.

I conclude it's better to focus on the peroxide — and what an interesting liquid it is. I take particular notice of its fluidity, how it flees from my arm, how it dries up the skin once deciding to stay, how it can go anywhere but has its destination in mind.

I wish I could do that — run away with the freedom to go back — but this is life, and it only evokes destruction.

~~~~~

I hadn't comprehended how much time I spent in the bathroom until a sharp knock at the door demands a bath of hydrogen peroxide beside me, a curse word rolling out of my lips, and a sudden state of hysteria.

Instead of the person entering, their melodic voice inquires, "Patrick? Are you doing okay in there?"

Don't say anything. Don't let him in. You're a psycho, yeah, but you can't let him know that, not if you don't want to be alone.

"Patrick, I'm coming in if you don't answer me."

Don't respond.

The creaking of the door fiddles with the lock system, and Pete's perturbed form steps through with a timid clutch on his wrist.

"It's impolite to intrude, you know." My gaze never departs from my chemical activity, only pursues it without a fear of chastisement from Pete, because someone interrupting my compulsion doesn't mean that it can't resume later, and not even the possibility of making a friend is powerful enough to override the immutable system.

"I apologize for being so tactless, but—" Pete stops short, processing what I'm doing to myself. "What is that?"

I glare at him for the first time since we met, but if we continue acting this way, it won't be the last. "Hydrogen peroxide, you fool. What does it look like?"

Pete's bones rattle under his clothes, but he deflects my comment outwardly. "It looks like you're doing something that you shouldn't be." Glory leaks from his skin and spills into the pile of peroxide on the floor in an agile manner.

It's a shame he's so arrogant. I thought you two would work out.

"What do you mean?" Teeth churning their own material, I add, "I do this all the time. It's no big deal."

"Considering you lied to me about going to the bathroom" — Pete allows one prolonged glance of shame at the puddle of disinfectant before addressing me again — "I think it is a big deal."

My shoulders buckle under the pressure of replying, eyes resort to staring at my battered shoes. "You don't know what it's like to need to do this, Pete," I mutter. "You don't."

The door blinks at the command of Pete, and he curls his knees up to match my position on the tile. "Then why do you need to do it? I won't condemn, I promise." His attention is still directed towards me, even after drawn-out moments of waiting that now migrate to kids with fewer problems.

Tears claw at my face, and I spread their soot more evenly across so that it seems like they disappeared. "Because there are fingerprints on my arm that won't go away, and I swear, I've tried everything — scratching, washing, burning — but nothing's worked as well as the peroxide."

"Do you know where they came from?" Pete's tone is a recumbent hum, splashing onto the walls like blood — conspicuous and just as alarming — and whatever solace that retreated previously has now brought crumbs.

"It started two years ago (when I was still as disarranged as I am currently) with a friend and a mistake, which can be said for anything dubious, now that I think about it." My diction snaps like the flimsiest crayon in the box, but a captivated expression from my companion glues it back together...partially. "The only thing I seemed to know was that I wasn't okay, Pete. I wasn't."

Pete's hands lunge for a square of toilet paper to capture the crisp leaves cascading from my eyes, and the first drop upon the surface is like blood upon the snow, like rain upon the ground, like acid upon flesh.

"And D-D...my friend was the only one who made things better, but I was getting worse, and I couldn't rely on him for everything. You can't do that to someone."

Porcelain fragments of grief construct Pete's visage and chip away at his prior mask of delight, which was so benefiting to see for someone as lost as I am, but it's gone now, and truth is the only viable craftsman.

"I was hallucinating more and more, and it felt like I was fucking dying, drowning under doubt and regrets and melanoid waves, and I didn't want him to have to fish me out and resuscitate me, so I left. I fucking left him, and at the time, it seemed like a fruitful plan, like I was somehow saving him from the starvation of loss, and even after he screamed that I was throwing him to the wolves, I didn't listen, because the only thing worse than suffocating is watching someone else suffocate, and he wasn't strong enough for that."

Why would you tell Pete this? He's going to leave you, just like you left the other fool, and you're going to die again. Who would be here to host me, huh? You ungrateful dimwit.

"I was on my way out the door, and..." My eyes stitch together tightly, recalling the event and shuddering.

Dr. Saporta wouldn't like this.

"He grabbed my arm and wouldn't let go. And yeah, that doesn't seem like a lot — it doesn't even hurt — but that wasn't why it stung. It was the first action of many, which included him locking me inside, him yelling at me that what I was doing was wrong and immoral and brutal, him saying that we could sort things out. But you know what?"

Pete's head rotates back and forth with the speed of a snail, bracing himself within this time to hear the final punchline.

"We never did, and now I'm left with these scars, while he's off doing whatever he wants, because I was too goddamn scared to say anything. I have to attend countless psychology meetings for the PTSD he gave me and the OCD that his touch gave me and the psychosis that started this all and the social anxiety that made me petrified to stand up for myself and the autism that separated me from everyone but him in the first place, and it's still not enough to fix me.

"He's free, and I am a fucking animal, trapped in a cage that I made for myself under the belief that it was his fault, and nothing ever changes in a life like this, so if hydrogen peroxide is the only safe haven since his company, if it's the only thing that keeps me alive, then you'll accept it like the kind of friend that you advertise yourself as."

Silence snatches the color from the room, chilling it from the lack of energy, but I suppose that's to be expected. I ruined it all.

"Thank you for telling me," Pete finally whispers. I anticipate another moment of quiet after his comment, but he has more to say. "Though you have to realize that this isn't good for you, Patrick, indulging in your compulsions."

Fingers fight for my hair, asphyxiating in the thin, dry strands. "You're just like the rest of them, always telling me not to do things, not to act a certain way, not to be myself, but this is my life now, in case you haven't noticed, and the peroxide comes along with it." A soft, miffed chuckle skates out of my mouth. "I thought you were beyond this, Pete, but I guess not. You're the reincarnation of my psychologist, and I hate it."

Stuttering in the form of closing and reopening occurs on Pete's bronzed terrain, eyelashes folding over the lower tundra with a mission of conveying shock. "I try not to be your psychologist, because that isn't how friendship is supposed to run."

"That's what everyone preaches, yet they never seem to follow by that example." My jaw compresses, narrowly crushing my teeth under the force as my vision flicks to the opposite lateral.

It's riveting to stop and examine the features of it — the silky blue that embraces the wall, the splattering bumps from average building, the absence of complexity with the simple, straight structure — but Pete's still gripping my uncited focus, and it appears that he won't let it go.

I give up and confront him.

"I want to help you, Patrick," Pete assures once recognizing that I'm listening (though not intently).

"But I don't want to be helped," I murmur, toying with my extremities.

Pete's vision lulls to a position aimed towards me, an earnest air diffusing around the room. "Well I won't warrant that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: honestly this chapter i cri
> 
> "I spent so long editing this" -people
> 
> I only edit to change things to curse words so that it doesn't sound totally gross (I write this on google docs, and my school can see your tabs) but other than that I'm really lazy
> 
> current vibe: my english teacher shaving his ugly-ass mustache that he had to keep for a charity thing
> 
> ~Dakota


	10. I asked for a fruit salad not a feels trip

"Patrick, what's wrong? You've been avoiding me all night."

My spotlight transfers from selecting a movie on the shelf to my frazzled acquaintance, whose hands levitate in the air to express a demand. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't play coy," Pete barks anxiously, and after an astonished scowl from me, his tone slopes down. "Sorry for being so aggressive, but there's something wrong."

You can't admit anything, or he won't leave you be.

Maintaining a safe stance from the vacancy of cameras in my room, my perspective stains the disc of an opened film package to refrain from meeting Pete. "There's been something wrong for as long as I can remember. There's nothing different about right now."

"I bet you say that all the time, yeah? And then you complain about no one understanding you, no one helping you." Pete's fingers skate through his dusty locks as a sigh rolls from his lungs. "Well I'm trying, Patrick, and you need to let me."

My arms collapse on each other. "I don't need to let you do anything. They're my issues, not yours, and even if you have an abundance of them yourself, that's irrelevant to me."

"Yeah, I do have an abundance of issues, and I've had to employ numerous psychiatrists to fix my fucking bipolar brain, none of whom have worked as well as the medication they gave me, so I know what it's like to struggle, and I am cognizant of the fact that it's not as pretty as society makes it (on the occasions that they acknowledge mental illnesses at all), but there are always going to be people who can relate with you, and I am one of those people, so please...if you value our friendship, tell me what's wrong."

You can't tell anyone anything. You already decided this, dimwit. You said you wouldn't let people see inside your brain. They'll manipulate you.

My tongue assails the rim of my mouth, pushing against my teeth to pass the time, while Pete is still as worried as ever, eyes creased with frustration. "Bipolar disorder, huh?" I elect to say, diverting the subject.

A strand of hair shuffles out of Pete's view. "That doesn't matter."

"That's what I always say, yet you try to force things out of me, but here you are, saying the exact same thing. Give me a moment to assess how hypocritical that is, will you?"

"I'm just trying to assist you," Pete whispers, gaze tethered to the floor.

"There is this voice in my head, and they don't want your assistance. I have to listen to them, not you. They've always been here for me, and you're just some kid from a daycare center that just happened to notice I was panicking and retained knowledge of a remedy for it. You're nothing special."

I can detect the spears piercing Pete's face, and his temple of self-esteem deteriorates into a murky dust, all because of a comment that I'm sure he's heard many times before. He shouldn't care that I've finally said it. I'm nothing special, either.

"Do you have a name for this voice?"

You just insulted him, and he only cares about what I'm called? Typical fool.

I pause and think. No, I've never considered what the terror that haunts my mind is named, and I don't really care, as well, but Pete's anticipating an answer, and I've been ghastly towards him, so the best I can do is comply.

"Etep," I declare without thinking, but it soon processes as a valid choice.

Pete's brows faint closer to each other in bewilderment. "Why Etep?"

"Because it's your name backwards, and Etep is the complete opposite from you. You're kinder than they are, smarter and more worthwhile, even if I won't confess to it regularly, so it's fitting, isn't it?"

Don't compliment people. They get too clingy.

But it's true, so I'll narrate it, and I've never had a sense of what I should and shouldn't say, so it really all blurs together, and this is no exception. Pete Wentz is beautiful.

"Etep," my friend repeats, mulling it over. "Thank you."

I wonder how finally addressing the voice in my head is cause for him thanking me, but I respect the gesture, and a smile unwittingly pulls at my lips. "You're welcome."

A metaphorical embrace flows between us, and Pete's throat shivers eventually, rumbling, "So why have you been avoiding me?"

Shit. We had shared an intimate moment, and he's back at my neck again. The allure is all but diminished from the room, the aura sickeningly emaciated and hell-bent on wounding us — or just me, because Pete is the one with the harmless query, and I am disastrously trapped in the crossfire.

"I shouldn't have told you what happened to me." It's remarkably honest for someone such as myself, and I note it as progress, but I shouldn't be rejoicing in this moment, for Pete's visage is ambushed with disappointment.

"And why is that? It's important for friends to articulate their feelings, and it's a consequential thing for humans to corner them inside themselves without acquiescing them." My companion's head propels back and forth with his fingers snagging the bridge of his nose. "I don't want you to be even more of the wreck that you portray yourself as, and the only way to escape that fate is to open up to me. I want you to know that I'm here for you no matter what."

"Fine." A burdensome shipment of breath embarks from my mouth. "I told my story as if it were D...my friend's fault, but it was me. I was the one who tried to leave. I was the one who cried at simplistic words thrown at me. I was the one who almost said something to my mother — I didn't, but I could've decimated it all. It was my fault, not his, and I fucking spoiled everything."

The urge to grab my hands and tell me something that needs to be heard bangs against Pete's face, but it doesn't shatter the glass. Only the words evade the barrier, crying, "It will never be your fault, Patrick. That guy fucking hurt you, so don't you dare blame yourself. What he did was illegal and unethical and more immoral than he said your departure was, and there's no one at more of a shortcoming than him. You're fucking amazing, and don't you debate that for a second."

Tears demolish my solidity, but I don't give a shit anymore. Too many years I've been locked up with the key thrown down the trashcan, and letting loose to just sob without judgment is a wonderful concept.

Pete won't care. He's known the same terrors, and maybe that's why he appeals to me so much, and I can't decide whether being just as disarrayed as him is a beneficial component of our relationship or not, but Dr. Saporta isn't here to vote on my opportunities for once, so I might as well enjoy my time.

But even so, Pete is wrong. The event was entirely my doing, and I've known that for two years. It's nothing new, not like a phase. It's forever, marked upon me with an infected needle and blood red ink.

Ambivalence composes a silent tragedy on my skin, accentuating its performance with an arduous rainfall, and I struggle through its volume to choke out, "You can't really think that all it takes is for you to say it for me to believe that it's the truth."

"Touch your arm," Pete orders, saluting his subject.

"What?"

Pete nods at my bicep to clarify. "Touch your arm where your old friend did, and just feel its complexities. Don't evaluate what transpired, only the vantage point from a third party. Did you grab your arm?"

My head wobbles to contradict.

"That's right. Your friend did, not you. He awarded you with post-traumatic stress disorder, with obsessions and compulsions, and none of that was your fault." Pete's eyes dig a grave for my denial into my soul to make certain that I understand. "Now touch your arm."

Grudgingly, hesitant fingers coast across my palpitating limb, the sensation introducing icicles and winter storms to the surface, and I surprisingly don't get strangled by its capacity like I suspected I would.

"See that? Your touch is real, not your friend's. His legacy ended two years ago, and I can't find him here with us, so he's definitely not holding contact with you. I know that you never certify your arm a passport into freedom, but you just beheld a credible taste of connection, and I'm so fucking proud of you, Patrick." A beam circulates Pete's demeanor, splattering liveliness on the walls.

"I'm not sure..." My lip suffers the sting of my teeth, nearly extracting blood, just because I'm an equivocal dimwit.

The boy giggles, banishing my comment to replace it with something more cheerful. "My new life goal is to assure Patrick Stump that it was clearly not his fault," Pete announces, shaping his hands to his hips. "And I always achieve my goals."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: the ship already be happening damn
> 
> current vibe: when a grammar video put black bars over people's eyes to protect their privacy, even though they're probably in their 80s by now and look nothing like what they did in the clip
> 
> ~Fapota


	11. brendon urie's sex life is bigger than this forehead

There's something oddly comforting about scrolling through your contacts one by one. Perhaps it's like emphasizing to yourself that you actually have people that care about you just a little bit, people that you can ring whenever you please without panicking about not saving their number, and that's something distinctive to someone with social anxiety.

But that comfort dissolves when Pete Wentz is watching you and presses the call button on Brendon Urie's page, someone who happens to be the worst person you could prank, because he ends up unwittingly pranking you back with even more velocity than you had contributed to your plan, so it's basically like screwing with your own army in a battle on your path to defeat.

There's no use trying to fight it, though, because Pete realizes none of this, and if I tried to explain it to him, Brendon will have picked up the line before I can finish, and thus the chaos ensues promptly afterward.

With the homosexual's flamboyant personality, there's no chance in hell I could hang up on him, because he'd call me back a million times until my phone drains in battery life and I curse the very metaphorical heavens that sent down this atheistic man-whore, whose most rampant plague is calling himself a gay lord every five seconds, so I brace myself for the impact that Pete will never comprehend before he meets the guy.

My phone's screen signals the connection between my friend and the apparent gay lord with a reputation for prostitution, stomach lurching with dread.

"I don't think you know what you're getting into, Pete," I warn, glancing up at the guest from my location on the floor to his spot on the bed.

"That makes it all the more amusing," he counters.

"No, I mean you really—"

"I got the Cheez Whiz!" a muffled voice proclaims from the alternate end of the line, its origin probably looting through a cabinet in another room.

My nose coils in perplexity. "The hell?"

"He probably accepted the call by accidentally crushing the phone under his elbow or something, and this is just the collateral," Pete surmises, lifting the device to his ear in a labor to expel more information on the cryptic Cheez Whiz.

An extended moan insinuates our ears, like a mix between an ox and a dying boar, neither pleasant, and our senses demur.

"Or this is him just pranking us back," I negate as more of the sounds tiptoe in pentagrams around us.

Pete visibly cringes, an action that usually doesn't arise outside him, being all docile and such. "What's wrong with this Brendon Urie guy?" His brows convolute intensely, like they'll somehow aid his study of my flaming queer of a friend, but I have to admit — not even I know what's going on inside Brendon Boyd Urie's head, and I've been familiar with him for over ten years, but there's something unique whirring in there (probably why he has such a massive forehead), something that none of us can reflect, meaning I've given up trying to decode his messages, which probably just have gigantic (yet exceptionally realistic) dicks drawn on all of them, so there's not much worth competing overall. The teachers fucking hated him for being so enigmatic.

"It's been said that his sex life is bigger than his forehead," I present bluntly, focus taped to the phone. "Aye, Brendon!"

No response.

"Ryan Ross is heterosexual!" I try, a deceptive grin lathered over my face.

"The fuck did you just say?" the "angelic" tone of Brendon Urie demands, the static from his increased volume dropping from the phone's speakers.

"Glad we got your attention," Pete thanks, leaning closer to me to relay the message effectively.

"Who is this?" the teenager interrogates with an astonished flair in his inflection. "Patrick Stump, I didn't know you were a prostitute."

"No, Brendon. That would be you."

"Shit, that's true." Satire dejection dangles from Brendon's words, but he dismisses them to move on to another subject. "Anyway, what's up?"

"Just so you know, this is Pete Wentz from the Belleville Development Center and the coffee shop near my house, and what's that whole Cheez Whiz thing?"

The reply returns fairly quickly. "Oh, that's just Ryan. He likes to eat Cheez Whiz and milk together — I honestly have no idea why, because it's pretty fucking disgusting, but he's cute, so I allow it."

"Ryan?" Pete mouths, and I send a "Brendon's boy toy" back to him, to which he laughs softly.

It's almost like you have a friend, psycho. That'll never happen, of course, but it's funny to see you try.

Not now. Get the hell out of my mind. All you do is bring destruction.

Hmph, it's almost like you're describing yourself.

That's the thing about psychosis, though — it doesn't cease for pastimes, only interrupts it to convey its terribly dull reports, as if I care at all; I should get back to my friends, not fret about what's going on inside my head. I have all the time in the world for that.

"Is there even the slightest chance that you're not crushing on Ryan Ross?" Though Brendon can't see it, my brow hikes farther up my forehead.

"Hell no. Are you new here?" he cackles.

"You should tell him how you feel," Pete advocates, enticed.

A roaring noise bounds against the phone line, and Brendon's words flee in a more startled manner. "Yeah, I should, but my mom is home, and she doesn't like Ryan to be here, so I gotta scat."

Snickering, I shift my grip on the phone. "Classic."

"Peace out, rainbow trout" is all I hear before Brendon supposedly tosses his device onto the bed and sprints into another area to alert his not-boyfriend to the compromising situation.

The scraping clamor of perforating a window — which is surprisingly comical — is audible from our position in my bedroom, soon chased by the gliding of legs across a wooden frame and the wrapping action of sealing the aperture.

After about a minute, the connection presses a finger to its mouth, and the life absconds from our signal, spurring a discussion between just Pete and me.

"Being thrown on a bed really reminds me of sleeping arrangements," Pete digresses, clasping his hands together.

For a moment, I predicted Pete talking about how being thrown on a bed reminded him of a morbid love letter he read once, but that's thankfully not the case.

"Yeah, let's sort that out." My voice is rather controlled for someone about to have a heart attack at the probability of Pete's prior statement, but I'm certainly not complaining. "I can sleep on the floor."

"Nonsense," my guest nullifies. "You're the host, and this is your royal mattress of divine slumber."

An unintentional giggle strokes my lips, but Pete appears to think it's the most adorable painting he's ever seen, so it remains without regret. "Are you sure?"

Pete nods, a natural smile cemented to his gentle veneer. "But of course."

My face contorts with the burden of making a decision, and I vocalize, "Eh, you can have it. The floor's cozy enough for me."

Pete dips his head diagonally, baffled at my eagerness to relinquish my serene setting for the solid ground. "Are you sure?"

"But of course," I mimic, with even the smile represented perfectly.

"If you insist." Pete mocks peevishness, but anyone can recognize that he's bubbling with gratitude beneath the first layer. Can you believe I did that? Wow.

I withdraw a downy blanket from my closet, where Brendon Urie escaped at the age of ten years old, shocking his parents quite thoroughly and causing mass carnage among the heterosexuals, and I fold the fabric across a pad from under my bed.

Once I've finished assembling my mattress, Pete registers that as an authorization to amble under the covers, and my actions pursue him a few seconds later.

"Good night, Pete Wentz," I greet underneath the aegean cloak, a simper hidden for the reign of eyes peeking out of the duvet.

"Good night, Patrick Stump." Pete's voice is thick like honey — and just as sweet — and the light from the lamp beside him is collared by the dominance of temporal obscurity.

Then night absorbs the heat from the air, stashing a frigid blast in its place, but that's trivial with heaps of blankets strewn upon my body, and the warmth of my companion is the sole discussion within my thoughts.

And in the morning, no one is to know that my back conformed to Pete's chest for a few hours, because that frankly isn't crucial. The only thing that matters is that I got a conducive refuel, and if it was in my friend's clutch, so be it. It's my bed, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I FUCKING LOVE BRENDON IN THIS I'M CRYING
> 
> ALSO SICK REFERENCE BRUH
> 
> current vibe: having to change the names in my fanfiction when explaining it to my dad
> 
> ~Dildota


	12. I'm what the kids call relatable

Watching Pete Wentz scrub tables in a mundane coffee shop would seem, at least to any regular person, like an incredibly boring activity, but it's already been mentioned that I'm not a regular person, so I'll enjoy myself as much as I possibly can.

The aspect of not having to worry about anything is a plus, too. The only slightly troubling occurrence is when the bell by the door wails for attention — the noise itself is terrifying, but the fact that a new person has entered is an added bonus — though other than that, peace is the supreme ruler.

Pete's hands circle the tables with close concentration, and through this it becomes evident that he values his job excessively. I wonder why that is, but my mother has made it obvious that asking people's introspective intentions isn't socially appropriate, so I don't say anything.

Instead, my eyes bounce over his actions, hollering from an elation that probably shouldn't exist (but nevertheless does) as the auroral ambience glitters around our heads and breathes as we would through our noses.

So mesmerizing is Pete's work that the droning of my alarm narrowly avoids being silenced by my captivity, but at the last moment, the snooze button is bulldozed by my frantic fingers.

"What was that?" Pete inquires, charcoal locks swinging around Pete's forehead as if from coarse jungle vines.

"My alarm," I confess, lips abbreviating with a nervous expression.

"Do you have to go somewhere?" My friend's face is masterfully illustrated with chagrin, colors clashing as if fighting a war for artistic control upon a terrain of matchless creativity and splendor, a war that they will never win, because the vibrance has been overrun by shadowy remorse.

"To my...psychologist." It's an ordeal simply to launch the words out, and perhaps I shouldn't be so grateful to myself for performing a basic human function, but the appreciation is still ubiquitously present.

"Have a good time, and do your best, yeah?" Pete really wants the best for me...

I nod hastily so that my actual emotions won't chew through their leash. "I'll try."

A heartfelt smile is the last thing I see before the door separates Pete and me, and what a pleasant closing act that is.

~~~~~

"You seem agitated." The words tickle Dr. Saporta's vocal chords with the intention of being portrayed as a dull statement, confined to a minimal range, and they're more than unnerving.

"How so?"

The man surveys me up and down as if to make it seem like he collected more data. "Your feet are tapping, your hands are squirming around, and you keep glancing at the clock. Do you have somewhere to be?"

A sly smile details my face. "Just here."

The psychologist pushes further. "Then do you have someone to see?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. It's Pete Wentz, about whom I told you before."

Well you seem joyous.

Adversity tears a hole in Dr. Saporta's countenance, speeding through every bit of durability. "You mean right before you slammed the door in my face after walking out and disrupting the other patients' sessions?"

My mouth's inspiration runs dry, and Dr. Saporta views it as an opportunity to ask one of his "philosophical" questions.

"Do you know your enemies, Patrick?"

I've always found it appalling when people would ask me this, because I thought by now they would've grasped the status of my mind and how non-linear it is, how knowing your enemy is by far the most befuddling thing one could require of another. The topic itself is so specific, as if enemies aren't always circling around like vultures, waiting to strike at the most random times, which are the most relevant to them in some inexplicable manner.

So no, I don't know my enemies, but I anticipated more from him.

But Dr. Saporta is a jerk, and whether or not that has already been established is of no importance, because the fact has been thoroughly etched into my mind, the only one who seems to know what it's doing, and because I'm so lost at sea, I concluded a while back that the best option is to follow my brain, considering other ends aren't so available as I had once thought, and judging by the way those voices hold such an authority over me, it's not like I have much of a choice but to comply, and they've made themselves pretty clear that they're the only things present and that they won't be leaving anytime soon.

At least I'm not alone, though. I wonder if I should be celebrating. Dr. Saporta definitely wouldn't, but it's not like I give a care after describing him as a jerk.

I believe it's fair in saying that he's done more harm than help, even if my mother would disagree with her last breath, but she's not the one who experiences first-hand what it's like to need a psychologist in the first place.

I'm notably fucked up, and that's something I have to understand or else suffer an impenetrable layer of ignorance hanging over me, but no one else seems to, only shrugging it off after assuring that I'm just like the rest of them — or better yet, just someone with minor differences that I can overcome by believing in myself; if they were true friends, they would recognize that believing in myself has never proven effective, but someone with the audacity to advise that remedy is far from a true friend anyway.

And relatively, one would assume that a patient and their psychologist must have a significant bond that excludes phrases such as those, but there is no separation between normal people and people who require treatment. We're all just humans, which entails emotions, and erasing them is somewhat ironic, because maintaining vigorous emotions is most likely what landed the patient in psychiatric care, meaning that they should possess a stronger judgement on the person most suited for their needs.

But I didn't receive my choice — my mother chose for me — so I might as well answer Dr. Saporta's query.

"Maybe."

"Well is Pete one of them?" Dr. Saporta pries, irises fluttering with an interest unfitting for a psychologist towards their patient.

"He challenges me." And for the most part, it's true.

Pete Wentz isn't afraid to counter me, to remind me that I'm not the only person in this world from a perspective other than my social anxiety's, while other people are terrified of me, maintaining a cautious distance like I carry a pathogen that will give them Ebola or something, never questioning me, and for the longest time, I viewed that as a benefit of being so jacked up, because I wouldn't have to talk to people, and they wouldn't have to talk to me, but in reality, it's not healthy to be sheltered from the world. Pete knows that I am a person, and people have a substance beyond their cognitive stability, which I don't as a result of perpetuating that aforementioned mentality, and it's beautiful just to feel.

I am a human. I have emotions. I have friends. I have other humans that are made of lots of the same atoms and genes and structures that I am, and Pete has made me aware of the fact that I'm not so abstracted as I had one thought.

"And do you view that as a flaw in your relationship?"

Pete Wentz challenges me more than anything I've ever encountered, and I am extremely indebted to him for it. Previously, I counted that as a flaw, but it's axiomatic that I was completely wrong, like I am with most things these days, and I'm emerging from my shell a tad more each second — revealing myself to the more disreputable of people, however, could be cataclysmic.

"No, I can't say that I do. He's made me think on many occasions."

Head tilted, my psychologist concurs, "It's always good to think." Dr. Saporta's sunflower-tinted pencil drums with shallow whispers on the diagnostic sheet, the one that makes me hesitant to visit this office, orchestrating a steady, monotonous harmony that attacks my ears with its balanced perfection; someone such as him doesn't deserve excellence, not after everything he's done to my mind, repercussions that can't ever be reversed.

"Thinking...it's been a risk for me, though," I grant, appointing an aimless mark of burgundy to my skin so that it may wallow around and vacate at its leisure. "My thoughts are messy, especially when I have voices laced within them, and I've found those anecdotes to be frequent."

Dr. Saporta's hands mesh together, like a net to catch my constant shade. "That's why we're here, Patrick."

My windpipe is then fractured by an incredulous laugh splitting away. "I thought we were here so that you can tease me about how crazy I am."

"You're not crazy—"

"Then explain my hallucinations! Explain the person in my mind! Explain my paranoia! Explain why I heard you talking to my mother about sending me to a fucking mental hospital!" My breathing requests pulses as hollow as the ocean in which I hope to drown myself, the nebulous depths of the New Jersey coast, but it's all so far away now, suppressed by other memories of hardship and sin.

I desire to return to it, to feel the dismal water slipping through my fingers as a metaphor of my life slipping away like it has been for two years, and just know that nothing will ever matter anymore, because I'm practically dead anyway. This has been clear as the sea which I never want to observe, because it advertises the lies I fall for temporarily, and I hate the aftermath of realizing that they were never tangible.

"You're not crazy," Dr. Saporta repeats, peering down at his fingers looped in a gesticulatory cage of flesh.

My head's genuflection defies him. "You can't turn me against something I've known for a while, the harsh opinions of the people at school and at home and in public, because they've been ingrained within my mind, and they'll be here forever, so you have no place to tell me that I'm not crazy — you're just one person amidst a world of people who contradict your statement, and you'll soon understand that your ideas about me won't mean a thing later, because you're transitory, but I bear the judgment for as long as I'm alive, and with the current state of things, that period won't be long.

"Your job is to guide me through this rough time, but you're receiving a bad grade as of now. Step up your game, Saporta, or you won't have a patient to help, but you will have a funeral to attend."

The impact of my speech is pronounced on Dr. Saporta's regularly neutral visage, his brows contorting with mixed emotion, his mouth thinning like wearied hair dyed a salmon hue. "If you're having suicidal thoughts—"

"No," I cut him off, beryl oculi burning with candid heat into my psychologist's copper ones and not once aiming to liberate them. "I'm having contented thoughts, and I can impute that to a special someone. Pete Wentz is not my enemy, and he will never be."

The sounds of the room desert us, punching through the walls to evade the futile doctor perched on the desk until he crushes them within his grip to transport them back to the area. "Well that's settled," the man expounds rather dully.

Once again, you've made a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: it gets happier in the next chapter I promise (but not for long lmao ur all dead)
> 
> current vibe: when I repeated a song on spotify so much that it couldn't play it anymore
> 
> ~DaCUNTa


	13. this entire thing is just one big shitpost

Sweltering tears trample my skin as they're bombarded by the breeze from the door when it's shoved open, and the world suddenly isn't so exquisite anymore.

The birds' tongues have been severed, then deposited into a roaring flame so that they may no longer sing. The trees are stationary, their roots' purpose finally discovered as one to hold the oaks in place. The air screams in anguish for a reprieve that is more permanent than it hoped for.

You're going to a mental hospital, psycho, right where you belong.

I fucking know, but I know after the middle-man told me. My own mother wants to lock me up, as if that's not what I've been doing to myself for five years, and she didn't even inform me of the plan. Am I not entitled to my own future?

Ever since I was a kid, I dreamt of what life would be like as a young adult, and not once did I consider what it's like for me right now. Not once did I think I'd be forced into daily medication and doctors. Not once did I think I would hallucinate voices in my head. Not once did I think I would be under continuous surveillance. Not once did I think I would be sent to a mental institution.

I familiarized myself with football teams and school dances, with movie nights and laughter. I didn't ask for this.

And through all of the pandemonium catapulting around the mind that turned out much different than I would've desired, a crimson-haired lad of eighteen approaches me, a smile chiseled into his feline lips that soon disappears due to my obvious strife.

Gerard fucking Way, the life-ruiner as a result of his chronic grin — and the last person I'd expect to see standing outside of a psychologist's office at four in the afternoon.

"Hey, Patrick!" the teenager greets, sliding his hipster frames farther up his slim nose with the same fingers he employs to shake my hand, not bothering to mention my tears throughout the journey, because I'm sure he recognizes that I'll never open up to anyone.

After the formality, my fists condense and camouflage in my pockets, awaiting the direction of the conversation. "Is there a reason why you're here? I don't mean to be rude, but my friends usually don't show up after my psychology sessions."

Who are you kidding? You don't even have friends, you psycho.

Gerard clasps his hands together to signal the call into discussion. "Ah, yes, right, sorry. Seeing as it's winter break, I'd like to invite you to my lake house in Caribou (that's in Maine, just in case you were wondering)."

The Ways aren't particularly rich, surfing on the spectrum of the middle class, but they managed to score a deal — whose specifics are beyond me — and won the house, but Maine is a couple hours away, so the property hasn't been utilized often.

Now Gerard's unearthed the perfect chance, but my requital isn't so proclaimed in my demeanor as it should be.

"You've been such a great friend to me, with picking up Mikey from daycare and being amazingly supportive of my art, so I wanted to thank you," the guy elaborates, fortifying himself to hear the final verdict, but the ambition flickers on and off. "What do you think? Are you coming?"

My stomach twists into an immovable knot, but a compromise is speedily regurgitated. "Can my friend come?"

I had predicted an uneasy expression from Gerard, but all that's projected is surprise. "It's fantastic that you've met someone else, and as my mother always says, a friend of you is a friend of me." The boy laughs jovially. "Of course he can come. Do you want to text him?"

I fetch the phone from my pocket, unlocking it with a sheltered geography near my chest so that no one can see what I typed. Searching through my contacts until I find a one named "the neighborhood gay kid", I draft a brief message to him, vague enough to keep him intrigued.

Hey, Pete. Please meet me by the coffee shop in ten minutes or so. I have something to ask you.

At the sign of the text's voyage, Gerard's face glows with yet another beam, and I somehow never grow tired of seeing it. The beam alone is enough to douse me with titillation.

This trip is not only a fun time with friends, but it's a respite from my mother, from my old classmates, from my doctor.

"I should probably text my mom, too, but you can pack your things. After I tell Pete, my new friend, about the trip, we'll go to your house when we're ready."

Gerard nods, smiling again and dashing off to prepare for our vacation to the lake, rendering me alone and outside of a sketchy psychologist's building.

I divert my phone's usage to write a message to my mother.

Gerard invited me to Caribou, Maine for the rest of holiday break. Sorry that it's not the mental hospital, but it'll have to do.

I slam the send button before I realize what I'm doing, but it's already too late, so I attempt not to introduce any fresh guilt.

My mother's text is displayed a moment later.

I don't know what you're talking about, Patrick, and frankly it's scaring me, but if you want to go to Maine with Gerard, that's okay by my standard. He's a nice kid.

Innocence is the most onerous emotion to fake — only a select few can master it — and so far, my mother isn't doing a very good job of it. So many holes have punctured her depiction that it represents nothing at all, and now that she's presented this terror to me, she will never be able to pull it off.

It's not like I haven't known this about her before, though.

She did tell Dr. Saporta that she was considering checking me into a mental facility, and I heard her say it. There's no eluding this one.

I can't bear to analyze the text any further, so I shove my phone deeper into the pocket of my jeans.

And with that, I set out for the coffee shop.

~~~~~

Pete's perpetuating his job of washing the tables when I arrive, but that's all paused when the chirping of the bells alerts him to my ecstatic figure shaking from excitement in the doorway. His spine elongates as he jogs slightly towards me, equipped to embrace me but doing so implicitly in case I panic in the middle of his workplace.

"Did you get my text?" I inquire, the breath snatched away by the exertion of my sprint to the shop, or maybe just being so close to my friend.

Pete's lips part to unveil pearly teeth set amidst an ocean of rose. "Sure did. What did you want to tell me?"

"This guy who used to be in the grade above me at school — Gerard, the art geek whose brother I had to return home — has invited us to his lake house in Caribou, Maine for the remainder of our break." My arms cuddle my chest vertically, vibrating with fervor.

The room thins as I wait for an answer, condensed to a planing line of nothingness, and the only three-dimensional figures are us. Fanaticism hammers plaques above the register to assert its authority over me, enslaving my emotions in favor of itself, and yet the imperceptible clock strides forward without misgiving.

When Pete doesn't amplify his disposition towards the subject, I ask, "So what do you think?"

And that's where it gets tense. Pete's hands squirm by his side, eyes trace the edges of the amber walls, gathering his thoughts. "Um, I..."

I somehow take the hint, even though I'm fatally awkward in social settings. "Pffh, yeah, of course. You don't have to come. I just assumed—"

"Patrick, don't beat yourself up over this," Pete chuckles, a recent countenance of jocularity snapping his trachea into shards of obsidian. I aspire to study them, but that's apparently not appropriate for the mood, according to my mother, but ever since I overheard her considering a place at a mental asylum for me, her trust is insignificant in my mind.

"Then are you going?" The expressions of a puppy plunder my eyes' prior storage of prospect to install the modern appliance titled begging, and Pete is smitten enough to play along with it.

Embers of many mentalities scald Pete's skin, but after a few seconds of upholding my pleading method, the guy finally cracks. "Okay, fine. I'll go, but only because you're so damn cute."

Through my lips' broad extravaganza of zeal, I get down to business. "I have an emergency bag packed at Gerard's house, so we only need to go to yours, and then we can drive with Gee to the lake house." That's a solid route for me, but for my companion...not so much.

I've never witnessed so much fear in my life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: this chapter is a mess bye
> 
> but aye u finally got to meet gerard
> 
> current vibe: when my friend calls the book we're reading in english class "bull shit" instead of "bull run"
> 
> ~Dacuddle


	14. the titles have nothing to do with the chapter so I can block out the pain

Pete's neighborhood is so dingy that I'm astonished he lives here.

Rubble from unfinished houses relaxes in peculiar places (or otherwise, places it shouldn't be), which has probably clogged up too many pathways to count. The scent of trash wafts around the entire community, rotting even the previously festive trees.

Even the people look threatening, with their dirt-encrusted faces and ragged clothes, a sneer the only clean thing on them.

Normally, there would be no rancor between the citizens and me, but the times they've almost hit me with stray objects is too high to list, and my sole ambition is to get out of here as quickly as possible.

Pete is pensive, smothering his shoes in the dirt to distract him from the suspicion of my thoughts, and there's a very coherent emotion that is generated as a result.

He's ashamed that I'm here. That must've been the cause for his hesitance to visit Caribou with us, because in order to pack his bags, he needs to visit his house, and this dump of a place happens to be his neighborhood.

"There's nothing wrong with you living here, you know," I clarify amidst the shrieking of vultures in the sky — which, now that I investigate my surroundings to a greater extent, is the only perpetual beauty in this location. "Poverty can strike at any time."

A sarcastic smile flocks to Pete's face (and now that I've been to his habitat, it's an outlier among the other residents — tidy, hygienic, nothing like the grimy mess that I've hastily grown accustomed to). "We have plenty of money, enough to survive well, but that's not the issue."

"What do you mean by that? If you have money, why are you dwelling here?" None of this makes sense, and the urge to extricate my hair topples onto me as a byproduct of the stress.

"You'll see." And just like that, Pete's eyes inflate with trepidation, cast back down to his feet once more.

I can sense that Pete's willing to open up, but an interruption arises out of the blue. "Freak!" it roars, punctuating the harsh words with stones pitched our way. One of the more precise objects strikes me directly in my upper arm, poising its cadaverous teeth over my skin to bite and retreating to the ground after its lucrative suicide mission.

"Who the hell are those people?" I demand, feet trembling with the proposal of its destination. "Why do they hate you so much?"

"Just your local bullies, nothing much." Pete's breath hitches over his words, and it's tangible that the toll was more emotional than physical, but I can detect the manifestation of a bruise lurking under his complexion — and cackling about the event, because his body thinks it's what he deserves for allowing his mind to reign.

It's not his fault that he's tormented by himself. It can't be, and that's what those bullies don't understand. Metaphors apparently aren't enough for them, because Pete's been torturing himself for a while now, but it wasn't yet physical until now.

"Why aren't you doing anything about it?" I know I could never confront them, being all socially anxious and basically dead inside, but Pete's soul lodges in courage (more specifically, the tad of courage I can never have), and he's been snuffed out enough to deliver a sign to him that this isn't right.

Or that's what I think, for Pete isn't doing a single thing. No plans, no words, no reactions, just the grey tones of his neighborhood, and he's lost inside them.

I'm not.

I cup my hands around my mouth without contemplating the ramifications, but it's me breaking free from analysis paralysis. "Hey, you peasants!"

Pete's features writhe upon his visage, absolutely aghast, while his tone bathes in frenzy. "What are you doing?"

"What you couldn't." I pivot to address the kids once more, their forms frozen into the earth. "What makes Pete Wentz such a freak? What characteristics confide in him that don't confide in you?"

The boys halt in a struggle to process my rant, as illiterate as newborns, and I consider that a chance to distribute the punchline.

"Well for one, he doesn't throw fucking rocks at people!"

Pete's lips graze my ear in an overshot, limbs heavy, voice burdened. "Patrick, stop this. You don't know what you're getting into."

"I will not. This needs to be said."

In my debate against Pete, the kids have advanced to ten feet away, an indication that I should wrap up my speech before I get socked.

"Care to defend yourself?" one with a sandy fringe stipulates, head cocked like the gun he probably hoards under his bed.

"Fuck off, Spencer," Pete groans, armed to playfully punch him in the side, but from the menacing gleam in the boy's cobalt irises, he refrains from doing so.

Spencer's limbs link across his chest, tongue glissading over his gums. "Not until this twerp tells me why he's being such a bitch."

I ignore his comment to squint at Pete cynically. "You know these cunts?"

"Well we do live in the same area." The rumples in his countenance suggest a desire to focus on the bullies, and I need to conclude my rant anyway, so that's where our attention reclines.

"What you gotta say, man?" the other boy asks, stroking once the premature mustache spread across his philtrum.

"Jon, don't encourage him," Spencer mutters, but I don't surrender.

My hands fissure into the dense oxygen, formulating sentences capable of wounding. "I'm saying that you can throw rocks at us all you want. We may even die, but that doesn't concern you, and neither does the benefits of attacking us. Because there are no benefits, and harassing us won't affect you in the long run."

The aura is swathed in silence, and my hand yearns for Pete's shoulder.

"It's time to go," I declare, dragging him along with me. "See you around, peasants."

~~~~~

I would've suspected Pete's shallow breathing is an outcome of my verbal assault towards the friendly neighborhood peasants, were it not for the affliction occurring as we near a scrappy old RV parked in the lot.

Nothing memorable bedecks the vehicle — it's as denigrative as the rest of the community, perhaps even more so — but fabrics of skepticism bandage Pete's hands to a position that is even more unrelenting than before.

"Is this it?" My nose catches the breeze of the dumpster's aroma, even though there are no dumpsters in sight.

Pete's fingers flounder by his lateral. "Are you disappointed?"

I shake my head, smiling. "We already discussed this, and no. To each his own."

Shrugging, Pete complicates, "It's not exactly like I would've preferred this to something nicer, but yeah — to each his own."

At least he's calmed down.

The door whimpers as it's brushed aside, intending to cause the loudest commotion it can muster, and an empty beer bottle is chucked at our heads.

"Get out, you roach!" a slurred voice cries from the room next to the entrance. "No solicitors allowed!"

"Joe, quiet, would you?" Pete scoffs, kicking a plastic wrapper from his path in disdain. "It's just me."

The area smells like the deepest pit of hell, and I'd know from attending a high school for a year before withdrawing into myself, a specific humidity that encourages me to crawl into a hole and suffocate. There are no decorations scattered across the metal walls, but rubbish practically screams to be extruded in one of the many waste baskets, and my hand skitters to a stop right above one before Joe can ask why I'm wrecking his RV.

"As if that's any better," Joe mumbles, scooting his hand through his greasy Jew-fro.

"Would you stop being such a shitface for one moment so that I can ask you something?" Pete's voice is as elevated as I've heard it, a snake diving into his throat to poison him.

Joe, however, seems adapted to the volume, proceeding with, "What is it, kid?"

Pete abducts a faded navy backpack from its dreary slump on the couch, the furniture equally as faded, tossing a t-shirt inside carelessly. "I'm going to Caribou with Patrick."

"Is that in Maine?" Joe croaks as Pete continues his search for clothing items and leaves me in the doorway. The "deer in the headlights" feeling remains to exist, even though Joe's attention poses to attract Pete.

My friend holds, supplying Joe with a sarcastic pinching of the brows. "Look who studied geography."

"You're so ungrateful," Joe wanders, flicking to the floor a piece of broken glass that he had been fiddling with. "Did you know that about yourself?"

"You remind me almost every day." Pete's jaw stiffens, oculi hide. "Well it's not my fault that I'm a fucking orphan, but it's your fault that you don't make life comfortable, even for your own needs. All you do is get drunk and sell drugs, and it's not like I can do anything, because I'm not even eighteen yet, and if I tried to speak up, you would threaten me, but you've been threatening me all the time, so it's not like it really matters anyway."

Before I can register what's happening, I'm scampering out the door, heart raging against my rib cage, while Pete swings a jacket around his shoulders in his pursuit of me.

"You little—"

The aperture secures as Joe is hindered, with the chilled air the only priority on our minds.

"Let's go to Gerard's house," Pete offers, impeding my consternation, and all I can do is stare at him.

The trip to Caribou is not nearly as troubling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I FOUND MY NEW FAVOURITE PICTURE OF JOE TROHMAN BUT IDK THE LINK BYE
> 
> current vibe: when I was writing Dove and took a screenshot when I hit 66666 words
> 
> ~Dacurdle


	15. can't these nubs just leave me alone

In the shelter of Gerard's van, the temperature was pleasant, donning a cozy status of seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit with the accessory of our body heat, but that's stolen away immediately after we step outside the car.

The area could've easily been mistaken for the North Pole, and I'm actually astounded that there aren't any elves trooping through the dense piles of snow, but elves of another form, beings floating along the winter breeze, bite at our cheeks on their way down the mountain, ushering the tint of blood to the surface of our skin to view its performance.

The weather website wasn't kidding when it deemed Caribou one of the coldest places in America.

Trees promenade across the jagged terrain of the bluff, wind flooding through the needles as if a flute and chiming a natural melody of the high elevation, an indigenous tune that sails through the birds' feathers with the tranquility of a breath and deposits cheer below their wings.

The old man of a house looming above us whirls a shadow against the flurries below it, demanding that the flakes' brothers detach themselves from its wooden structure, that they are not its insulation.

I stifle the eagerness to laugh.

Only the clicking of the trunk being slammed down distracts me from the frozen sights, Gerard suddenly tossing my duffel bag into my protected hands as his car keys jingle within his fingers, coated in the black fabric of his skeleton gloves.

I never really understood why Gerard bought those, but he's always been fascinated with death and all things Halloween, so I suppose this is just a component of his obsession.

In my delay, Pete has passed me and is carefully tiptoeing up the steps, shabby from the moisture of the snow. "Are you coming?" he laughs, departing his watch of Gerard twisting the key into the knob to gaze upon my shivering figure.

The words spur my legs into action, trudging confidently through the ground pommeled by snow since the beginning of the season. Delight whisks in my stomach, increasing when the door is pushed open by Gerard as I ascend the stairs.

My friends scoot aside to make way for my excitement, smirking to themselves at the accomplishment of animating me so fully and observing as my eyes twirl around the grand foyer like in a movie.

The property is entirely wooden, typical of the mountain lodges high up in the clouds, a lifeless fireplace directly across the entrance, just pining for a flame to dance inside its brick walls. A loft hovers over the sitting area, apertures to other rooms sculpted into its base next to a winding staircase lowering into the pavilion. Windows illuminate the space with periodic beams of sunlight intruding through the snow, and plush chairs are littered around the area for small talk. Tucked away below the loft are more rooms, portals as maple-stained as the rest of the home, otherwise plenty of space for many activities.

My focus is on the house, while Gerard's is on my amazement of it, as it should be — this is Gerard's building, so he's seen it before, but Pete hasn't, yet he's staring at me like I'm a diamond set against the sand.

"Isn't it beautiful?" I marvel, cheekbones priming in a broad smile.

Gerard provides Pete with a one-sided look — secret, sarcastic, and amused by our tacit connection — but Pete has no idea what his new friend just did.

"Absolutely."

Gerard's hazel irises flip back and forth between Pete and me, sharing the moment with us. "So this is all nice and lovely, but you need to pick your rooms, or else you'll have to sleep outside."

No one here fancies being buried under an avalanche that will surely thunder down the mountain in some strange superstition of Murphy's law, so in our hysteria, we bump into practically everything in our path as we dash towards the hallway.

Try not to sleep in the snow, dimwit.

~~~~~

A dimly lit room by the end of the corridor whispers subliminal messages in my ear like that one rap song that I try not to listen to, and despite the cringe-worth connotation, my feet find themselves being hauled towards it.

It's not like I'm complaining though, as the location is perfect for my obsessive needs, hastily pairing with the associated compulsion of swiveling the handle left and right before entering.

The scent of the area isn't so disparate from the rest of the house, only slightly dustier from not being occupied in a while (for all I know, this could be the second time the Ways have visited here, and what an honor it is to be one of the premiering guests) but a mere candle could spice things up without a thought.

Strawberry would be my preference, but I'm not sure how well that would go down with Gerard, who smacks strawberry-flavored candy to the dirt upon sight. It's linked with happy memories, though, so he may be more relenting.

Nevertheless, the slight tinge of lint is enough to force my fingers to my nose, gulping puffs of air through my mouth like the people I write off as "mouth-breathers", which are apparently frowned upon on society, according to my mother and the television.

Think about something else before you pass out, okay?

I nod externally to satisfy my mind, lobbing my duffel bag onto the blue-quilted bed in the middle of the room, a walnut board bowing overhead and accompanied by multiple paintings of Caribou scenery.

My imagination meanders inside them, visualizing myself firing snowballs at unsuspecting victims, strolling through an arctic square, and enjoying myself for the first occasion in a long time. It's nice while it lasts, but a hammering noise from the room down the corridor flicks me straight in the forehead.

Bursting through the door (but remembering to complete my ritual), my socks slide over the alder surface below me, unbothered by anything around my speeding body but the final destination. My mission is going well, until a force nearly knocks me off my feet, were it not for the acute reflexes of none other than Pete Wentz.

He tilts me upright, cheeks blazing from embarrassment, stammering, "Uh, sorry about that, Patrick."

I'm muted for a minute, olive eyes calculating. "It's all right." My attention never roams anywhere other than Pete's face, still flushed from the excursion.

After my acknowledgement of the apology, the sounds burrow into the wooden planks of the bunker, chattering quietly to one another about how the youthful silence is faring at its job, but the banging of a fist against a wall elicits their return.

"Get ready, bitches," Gerard yells, sass infused in his gait as he unveils his entire form from behind the structure. "We're going clubbing."

~~~~~

Pete's nimble hands labor to loop the cerulean tie around my neck (since I am so inexperienced, having never left the house for social gatherings), endeavoring with unbridled sympathy to perfect it, as if I care whether or not it's one centimeter out of line.

Gerard granted me one of his spares, along with a black vest that he managed to find in his closet at home, and though he's taller and broader than me (which can be said of almost anyone, to be honest), it's a stunning fit.

By some heavenly chance, dark dress pants and a pressed white shirt were packed in my emergency duffel at Gerard's house and fled to the mountains with me, so as I examine myself in front of the mirror by peeking around Pete's body, who is relentlessly stationed at my neck with the tie, it's a never before seen version of me.

And I'm determined to like it.

"I don't understand why we have to dress like this," Pete complains, brows bundled in a sable heap as he concentrates on twisting the blue fabric.

"Gerard is a classy lady." My lenses lock with my other pair as I speak, fabricated in the mirror to make it seem like it's actually me, which is oddly like the surveillance of whom I'm so frightened.

Don't think about that, psycho.

A wordless smile converges on Pete's coral lips, limelight chained to me. "Apparently. Maybe it'll earn us a good reputation there."

"We're not going back, are we?" Alarm crowds my oculi, calmness dispersing to under my feet, where it is promptly crushed unwittingly by my sensible shoes. "Even going once is enough for me."

Pete laughs, finishing the final touches of my tie and tucking it into my vest, a grin scheduled as the closing act. "We don't have to if you don't want to," my friend yields, shrugging neutrally as he, too, observes me in the mirror.

"How do I look?" I pose wildly, transporting myself to a peculiar online parody of something serious, but Pete is entertained.

"Absolutely wonderful. You'll make the people at the club jealous." He winks.

Shuddering through a veneer of peacefulness, it's all I can do to endorse my composure. You can't just break down on people without a warning, and I have no motives for obligating the sentences to emancipate themselves, so I lock my mouth like I've been doing forever and tell myself it doesn't matter, because Pete would argue with me about how it does, in fact, matter, that my comfortability is superior to an unnoticed panic attack in the middle of a public crowd, but he would be wrong, and you're frankly not supposed to correct your friends, or else you won't have them anymore, and I've spent enough time alone, so it's just a debate of perspective now.

So I smile and wave, the formalities, and prepare myself for the club and the terror that will ensue.


	16. ur just a rat meme and I can't help you

"You don't look very gay." The bouncer's expression is incised distinctly on his bronzed skin, unwilling to let us pass, but my companion has other ideas.

"You don't look very polite," Gerard retorts, brushing the man aside and stepping into the dark club before he can object.

Your friends are going to get you into trouble.

"I don't care," I whisper through the shadows, the blare of the music sheltering my words so that no one may hear them.

Electronic beats thud against the velvet walls of the club, mingling with the stench of sweat and alcohol from the sour (and possibly drugged) beverages of the drunk patrons, and glasses drained of their mature substance reflect the coruscating lasers of the strobe lights, which would be murderous to an epileptic person due to their disorderly vehemence.

At the end of the summer, though, I promised myself I would take note of people in addition to my surroundings, and though Dr. Saporta was biased towards that concept, it's a proactive thing anyway, so I dignify myself by tolerating its guidelines.

Most of the lesbians have congregated to a lounge in the corner to attend a tipsy game of spin the bottle, except instead of kissing when it whirls towards them, they pour large swigs of beer down their necks and begin to giggle passionately. I haven't met any of them, but I worry for their safety.

Two thirds of the gay men shimmy on the dance floor, some so intoxicated that they're imagining a partner beside them, while the other third is either stumbling around in a disoriented state, or they're sober enough to recognize that they're devoid of an acquaintance.

From the way my eyes circle the room with infatuation, it must seem like I'm interested in at least one person in this bar, but the only people in here that don't scare me are Pete and Gerard. These people don't understand that, however, and one of them almost invites me to dance until Pete's menacing glare tells him off, and the man backs away with a quite horrified tremor in his gait.

Pete preserves a guarded watch on me, glancing around to see if any homosexuals will approach me again and ask for a dance or...something else. I consider it unnecessary, as I'm short and unstable and ultimately out of place, but the consideration is appreciated with multiple smiles sent his way sporadically.

Almost instantaneously, Gerard is swept away by a short guy in a leather jacket, gripped by the hand in an act of jurisdiction, but from the facetious smile on my friend's face, no protest is discernible.

And with that event, Gerard has officially strayed from his plan of sticking with us. My palms don't sweat from betrayal, rather anxiousness from now being a party of two, even if Pete is the best person with whom to visit a club.

In a matter of minutes, we're situated at the bar by request of Pete Wentz as he orders two waters to remain modest and not out on the street, a knife in our backs from a drunken mistake, and the clear liquid is catered soon after.

Stuffiness blankets us in flashing clouds around our heads, congesting the space more so than it had been since the opening hours, and I can't help but wonder if the frosty climate of the exterior would be snugger.

But as I say, when it is hot, we wish for it to be cold. When it is cold, we wish for it to be hot. When it is just right, we find other things to worry about, imprisoned on our own heads, the torture chambers that have become familiar to us.

On the contrary, I don't give a damn anymore, because I've been living life through bullshit, falling for it over and over again, and that itself is painful enough, so I might as well treat myself to my favored weather.

Just as I'm about to tap Pete's shoulder to suggest that option, an unhinged figure slams into him, disrupting my path.

"Hey, Pete!" it yells, slurred speech expelling saliva from its unintelligible sounds, and I wouldn't have identified Gerard if not by looking at him — but even then, it's a struggle.

The older Way brother's scarlet hair is matted to a forehead swaddled in perspiration, drenched strands occasionally plummeting to other areas with his capricious movement. In alliance with his tilted glasses, his tie has been removed from under his vest, ticking back and forth as he sways and chuckles for no reason other than to display how wasted he is. And through all of this absurdness, he's wielding that fucking shit-eating grin.

"Is there a reason you stumbled into me like that?" Pete demands, brow curving into a hook.

"Just w-wanted to" — Gerard blinks furiously, collecting his thoughts — "s-say I'll be with Frank Iero...this dude."

"The one that basically kidnapped you?"

Gerard simply winks, tripping over his shoes as he retreats to this new friend of his, abandoning us once again.

"Hope he's having a good time," I comment just to add something to the conversation that has been left just to us.

And for some cursed motive, I forget Pete's smile to zero in on the faces assembling near me, warped to resemble the aggressive beaks of crows programmed to attack. Their screams cause discord with the music, thunder standing back-to-back with clear skies, pitches duplicating bullets in a revolving pistol with the main goal of killing my sanity — and it's prosperous.

There are so many of them, and the cloud of stuffiness is more than I can handle. It mutates into water laden with arsenic, labeling itself as nothing more than a childhood friend, so I accept its remedy only to later comprehend that my insides are liquefying and smoldering and dying along with me, and there's nothing to stop the process.

No evidence is to decide what's causing this, the only thing I know being that I'm drowning, but I'm drowning obscurely with no one to save me, and my pleas are but unsubstantial calls into the wilderness — irrelevant, miniscule, enveloped in the harsh fabric of a rag down my throat that only serves to drown me further.

Blood climbs towards my mouth, planting knives into my gums as support for feet crafted out of fluid and hatred for its host, and with each centimeter it conquers, rays of black burn into my irises until they're all I see, but it's like living through nothing, and I hate that — I hate this.

They're only people at a bar. But they're watching.

~~~~~

"Aren't you cold?"

That should be the least of Pete's worries after I almost died inside the club, but I nevertheless respond with a curt nod. It's not like he knew what happened, only witnessed my frantic tugging at his collar with the absence of an adequate supply of oxygen and acted intelligently. There's no cause for praise, but then again, he's the only one that actually cares about me, so if salvaging my bruised body from the depths of the ocean is what he did, it's important in a sense of perspective.

But to answer Pete's question, yeah — I am cold, and I've been shivering for the entire time we've been outside of the club, but I didn't notice in my haste to merely fucking survive this terrible war against myself, this terrible war that prowls only behind my eyelids so that no one can see it, so that they can just label me the kind of crazy that I already know I am.

Though it isn't valid, what they say to me, because they're not the ones trailing pellets of hemoglobin behind knives gleaming with a smile, but only inside of a metaphor because I'm too scared to do it in real life. They're not the ones thinking they're trapped in a sealed room when anyone else could twist the knob to free them, the lock having never existed at all. The superior fact is that I've never adhered to their warnings of my insanity, because in assuming that they can't affect me more than I affect myself, I refuse to acknowledge their claims, and it's in this paradox that I temporarily subsist.

Pete says none of these things that I've heard from the lackadaisical fools of society, meaning he isn't as toxic as Dr. Saporta would like me to believe, and his kindness thrives in simply asking if I'm cold.

"Yes," I reply, talking to a ground as concrete as any part of Western land. "I am very cold."

Without speech, the zipper to Pete's jacket tumbles down the slope of his torso, separated from its symmetrical half to be rejoined around my slender shoulders.

The operation showcases the unkempt t-shirt flung onto Pete at the last moment, much to my surprise — I surmised he had changed into something nice, but that's apparently not the case.

Pete regards my bemusement with a sheepish partial rotation of the lips, debating whether or not he should uproot the coat from me because of my perceived distaste, but his fretting is suspended at the entrance of inconsolable quivering.

The tables have turned, and I have every intention to do something about it, so my arms snake around Pete's back in a failed attempt to insulate him, and if he didn't persuade me otherwise with his contented sigh, I would've let go, a meek wringing of my hands the only thing to keep me company, but the moment is preserved by an unbreakable casing of friendship.

A couple of minutes twirl around us, marinating in comfort and exchanged breaths of joy, before Pete murmurs, "May I hug you back?"

Instead of being a normal human being, decked with readily accessible consent in all the correct proportions, my friend's question is more than just that, a motivation to pursue the dreams that have danced in my brain for many hours.

The dreams materialize as a kiss, pressed upon Pete's lips with the impulsivity that I don't reject for once. It hums with the jubilance of a child, buzzing along, fashioning a tune in its path. It inhales the bittersweet fragrance of rapport and knows that Pete Wentz is the prime choice, and this is a manifestation of truth.

Because in a room full of art, he is at home, and it's been sculpted into my mind that he's the only one that will ever matter.

He is the one trading a fever with me, the one whose heartbeat matches my own in a rhythmic chorus with a tempo as electric as the Earth, the one whose rose lips are sewn to harmonize with mine perfectly, and a melodic song is what they indeed produce, lacquered by covert tears, faithfully shed by the scorn of those who ever doubted that we would make it past summer.

But we did, so our heads are raised without a care, and through this triumph and this strife and this devotion to one another, I'm suddenly not so cold anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: shit's been done son
> 
> baes be canon
> 
> but ur all getting rekt in the next chapter lmao
> 
> current vibe: when fueled by ramen stopped selling regional at best fjgekslgje
> 
> ~Dawgkota


	17. I hate everything, including myself

I kissed Pete fucking Wentz, and my mind is hell-bent on making sure I am cognizant of that, igniting every crisp document of prudence with a black fire screaming inside me.

But what my mind doesn't know is that with something like this, you can suppress it. Whatever. You can shove it deeper into the closet, as if you haven't been doing it for years already, and you can allow yourself to forget.

But you never do, so you keep coming back and find the coffin you buried, the coffin that isn't able to be opened anymore, but you nevertheless retain the persistent urge to know what's been hiding inside, so your fingers crack from your effort to pry the lid off, and in the unlikely event that you actually succeed, it's as empty as the void in your soul.

So basically, we're all screwed in one way or another. The people who remember are haunted, while the people who forget are constantly itching for more.

I've understood that method forever, yet I'm still confined within my arms to a bathroom stall whose lighting plays peek-a-boo intermittently and dangles mania in front of me like a string to a cat, and therefore my anxiety is everlasting.

My hydrogen peroxide isn't capable of being stored inside my pockets, and my obsessions are as dynamic as ever, so a damp paper towel will have to suffice. It's not the real product, though, so my vision is attracted to everything else in the room while it rots.

Subdued voices nurse the patrons' ears, some opting for a slurred pedagogy, some consummately sober, all far too shrill for my fondness, but it's similar to engaging in a conversation — at least for me, because psychologists claim my conversations are often unrequited.

Shoes waddle in a muffled exhalation, circling the room so that they're invariably visible below the plastic walls as they complete the task they entered this place to do, somehow mocking me for lingering in here with tears mauling the floor in prolonged intervals of five seconds.

And it becomes a game I play as I wait for my emotions to be flushed out in the form of deoxyribonucleic saltwater, wide eyes chasing the pellets of my own production as they languish in the smooth tile and mimic my prior death.

Unlike me, however, they behave with indomitable grace, plunging their arms into elegant twirls and bows, and they transform death into a work of theater. They make dying look beautiful, even when it is not, and it converts suicide to my taste, dipping me over the edge of a cliff with a smile kindling my lips, because it's my desire transfused in someone else's actions, and I'm finally earning my wish.

Death is a perplexing concept, and though I jokingly shame Gerard for feeling the same thing, the captivation often sojourns in me, too. Every time my eyelids eclipse my curious pupils, visions of graves and falcons and awe sashay through my trail, but they never fracture my bones, never paint my shadow with blood.

Rather, they transport layers of crystal streams to my aching figure and soothe my brittle heart with tender fingers contrived from silhouettes just as fearful as I am, and they cherish the fact that I'm fucking alive, because like me, they are bloody, bruised, and broken by the voice in my head that orders flames to lick their flesh until they're as dry as skin washed in hydrogen peroxide, and they have battled by my side since their birth out of fallen leaves — a birth that sentenced the visions to death but didn't, for they were cunning enough to diagnose the sound of swords being unsheathed and ran for their fucking lives.

But alas — where have they gone now that my tears represent the leaves from which they sprang? Perhaps once they saw the DNA soaring from my eyes, they decided it was time for them to do the same, so they split away in a lurid fragment and obliterated their own leaves. Now when I close my eyes, all I see is a sneer and a vacant road, and it's like befriending the kind of death that's disagreeable to the optimists.

Because of the visions' unwillingness to stay with me, I'm still isolated in a bathroom stall for many minutes after I last acknowledged my location, and the tears continue to evacuate with a perpetual intensity that I can't seem to govern.

That brings me to my next point, noting upon the fact that governing tears is trivial when you have death on your side. The feat is that I've learned there is a way to present suicide as charming: make sure no one sees it happen. You'll be safe then, buried in an enigma once the tears have been annihilated, and it's ensuring someone will care for a little bit. It's ensuring they'll glorify you, praising even your flaws when they were the things that got you killed in the first place. It's ensuring they'll glamorize the decease of teenagers, while simultaneously oppressing those who were just like them, as if they need more funerals on their schedule. It's ensuring they'll curse your grave for occupying space that could've been utilized for their beloved war veterans that probably died from typical heart disease. It's ensuring they'll hate you deep down, with the worst part being that they won't even confess to it. It's ensuring that you're better off in the ground.

Informing Dr. Saporta that I don't experience suicidal thoughts is becoming more of a strain to my fidelity, but it's necessary, and even though that's exactly what he calls my compulsions in relation to myself, it's nevertheless viable.

It's not like I'd physically mangle a gun until it's centered around my temple, because the people from school would be required to attend my dreary funeral teeming with the citizens of Newark that frankly don't care and just want to watch a football game, and my death should symbolize more to them than an obstruction, because this is the one and only final passing, the passing that prevails outside of my thoughts, and my chaotic world has been silenced for it.

And then the last tear before I run dry slips from my parted eyelashes and cascades to the floor, where its ankles contort and beckon death to its beauty, proving that it's not so armored as the world expected, and for once, I'm disappointed because of that.

The tear's silk dress is tattered and riddled with holes, whose texture is that of the stars, and the being trips dishonorably on the mess in an attempt to pirouette one last time. Blood digs a trench in its pallid face, illuminating entirely the delineated lips who are loyally glimmering white from the reflection, and towards me its lucent eyes glance, pleading inaudibly for deliverance.

The water modifies a whimper to a ripe howl that pierces the tile cradling its minuscule form — treachery of the domestic variety, which is arguably the most painful — and its whole body eventually collapses to the floor with the whisper of a yelp cleaving to its lips.

It can no longer dance for me.

~~~~~

Checking the clock has never been my specialty, and by effect, time evades me on a constant basis, but it's most definitely been a century since I arrived in the bathroom — I at least understand that.

Pete must have been searching for me as my eyes were distributing its fluid children, but the last time he burst through the door of the bathroom, he ended up lecturing me on why hydrogen peroxide is bad for my skin and my mental health, and it may have been more remorseful for him than for me.

However, I just fucking kissed him a few minutes ago, and that's a reason to stress about me even more than earlier, because someone such as myself doesn't purge guilt as easily as others, and he's aware of it.

But why should I be guilty for kissing him?

Because you have social anxiety, dimwit.

Social anxiety or not, Pete brought me back to the strawberry fields with the flavor that clung to his lips, and it was like tasting the childhood we were never given, the childhood we contrarily deserved, the childhood that reeked of flagrance, because we were children, yes, but we were children of rue, and only we knew how monstrous that was.

Pete knew the most out of us all, so as an anecdote of sedition, he glossed his lips with the aroma of strawberries, using only his middle finger as an applicator, and he gave no fucks. To any person whose brain is injected with happiness, strawberries are but the fruit they consume at the dinner table every night, but to us, it's a force that clashes against the stench of disease, and Pete Wentz is undeniably our savior, if only to the ones who are familiar with him.

On the flip side, Pete's nowhere to be seen, but that's due to me not scanning the room enough, as well as the staggering amount of homosexuals clogging up my senses and naturally prohibiting me from doing so.

Gradually, the blockage clears to unmask the tenuous lateral view of Pete Wentz, clustered by a glass of something a little stronger than water and aiming to submerge his regrets in alcohol — though, by the equilibrium of his posture, it's his first shot.

Energy surging through me, my dress shoes stride forward to accost my friend until a hand tangles my arm inside its tenacious grasp, barren of the incentive to surrender.

The affinity is uncanny, the brawn definite, the shape of the slim fingers adept, the feelings evoked grim, and I'm not even obligated to turn around to catalog him, because an indelible mark such as the one on my arm is an identification itself.

But I whip around anyway to face those fucking sapphire eyes that never scrapped a single tear for me, those sapphire eyes the color of the water strangling my lungs, those sapphire eyes that puncture me every time they penetrate my security with a simple stare that shouldn't mean anything but does, because I've known it all too well before.

But it's gone; it has to be, because the mental entombment was immune to any resurgences. I fucking buried those memories and stomped over the dirt — I know I did, so why the hell are they showing up? Why am I choking?

Those memories were snuffed out a while ago — two years, to be exact — but with the mere glistening of impeccable teeth, the harrowing images flood in one by one.

"Hey, Patrick!" the man greets, a height to his brow. "Remember me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: i'm cackling ur all fuckign dead
> 
> just wait lmao it gets better
> 
> current vibe: how I put this video at the beginning of another chapter, but the person who posted it deleted their account so I had to find it elsewhere
> 
> ~Dapootlovatoa


	18. I've been dead since 2005

I was fifteen years old when I died.

There was no warning label packaged with it — the occurrence just fucking transpired, and I was expected to keep up with the number of knife strokes from a promise engraved into my stomach, but how can you ask that of someone? How?

I didn't notice the streaks of crimson upon me at first, because I was too hypnotized by the bastard named Dallon Weekes, and there was that damn smile that just fucking shackled me to him, and I convinced myself that I actually wanted to be there with him, instead of safe in my home, and I likely caused my own murder.

He should've been my arch-nemesis, but he wasn't, and I was fucking insane for thinking that he was anything other than an abuser.

Truth is, Dallon injured me in ways I cannot describe. I was already messed up when I met him, but was okay with that, because at least I was taking care of myself, which I embodied when I endeavored to leave him, and all of this seems like a palpable encouragement that it wasn't my fault, but that will never be so, no matter what he did to me, because he may be an abuser, but he was an abuser with a purpose — my psychologist says that's the same mentality he finds in other victims, but it was evident that it was reality.

So I selected my poisons carefully, with an open palm towards the desolate sky, perusing the insignia of the various pill bottles and devouring every moment to study the effects it would have on my body, but it's not like I actually considered that, because I was ready to die in any shape.

Hydrogen peroxide unquestionably budded as the winner, and now I'm hooked on my own demise.

But none of it really meant anything, because Dallon Weekes was my only drug. He was the only one that could get me lost. He was the only one who interpreted that he couldn't possibly understand to every level. He was the only one that could make me feel like I was alive while fucking killing myself, and maybe he shouldn't have done so much for me, but he did, and I stuck around for a while because of it.

Very soon, I was unintentionally addicted to a metaphor, to a person that was always distant yet adorned with a magnified version of himself that was skillfully presented to the world, and every distinction between a monster and a blessing was hurled into the drain, considering I was too polluted by Dallon's charisma and too muddled by my own head to oppose myself, and an awful lot that did for me.

In my defense, throwing myself away like that seemed like the right thing to do. I was young and troubled and very much like I am now, and I would be the same if that event never developed, but in no way am I thankful for it.

True, I wouldn't be where I am today, but today entails panic attacks, entails monotonous meetings with a psychologist, entails destruction with every blink of an eye, and today I am confronted by my attacker for the first time in two years, and he constrains me to offer a challenge.

And here I am, floundering in those sapphire eyes that meant too much to me for it to be healthy, and a smile plays on Dallon's lips as if nothing ever happened at all.

"It sure has been a long time," Dallon spectates, towing a hand through his sepia locks and glancing around briefly before his gems alight on me. "What have you been doing?"

Nothing drips from my mouth, overshadowed by the shrunken position of my oculi, but as Dallon's expression tempts a response, I agree to it. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

My attacker leans in, bewildered. "No?"

I censor the urge to slap him across that fucking perfect face of his, clamping diplomacy over my jaw. "You know what you did to me."

A chuckle recedes to his lungs. "Do you think about it often?"

"Every single day." I protract the words in hopes of adding solemnity, but nothing submerges Dallon's perennial joy.

"Don't you think that's a little obsessive?" When my countenance radiates sternness, he includes, "Just a little?"

"Yes, it is, and do you know why?"

Dallon's face knots in hyperbolic reverie, but his head rotates back and forth a few seconds later.

"It's the fucking obsessive-compulsive disorder that you caused by grabbing my arm the way in which you did, and it's irrational, but it's your touch that contaminated me, and I'll be like this forever."

Dallon elects for the scientific side of things, countering, "Isn't that curable?" He didn't even research my doom.

My foot bruises the carpet, russet material padding the grooves in my shoes, and salivated rage springs free. "Do you think it's fucking curable?"

My assailant condenses a finger to his garnet lips, envisaging prior occurrences. "You know, you're more aggressive than I remembered. You didn't curse much, and now you're on full volume."

"And do you know whom I blame for that? You." My teeth wound the interior of my mouth, aggregating the enmity to within my flesh. "I thought I was the one who left you to the wolves, but it was actually the other way around, and these circumstances ended up worse than I predicted."

Dallon's shoulders boost higher. "There's nothing wrong with seeing an old friend."

"Yes, and that's an opinion originating from the man who couldn't even bear watching me walk out the door. It means nothing."

"It must mean something, because here you are, whining about shit that happened two years ago."

My loafers asphyxiate my attacker's, contrition but a side note. "Fuck you, Dallon Weekes."

Sarcasm blooms in his sapphire eyes, a laugh trailing behind. "Oh, honey, you already did."

A shift in the ambience cackles from the rafters, swooping down and interrogating, "Patrick, is this guy harassing you?"

My body flings around to address the unexpected Pete Wentz, and though my priorities were directed towards him a few minutes ago, Dallon is at the summit now, but I nevertheless lie, "Not at all."

Dallon is impressed, brows insouciantly tipped to portray his emotions. When I lied to him during our relationship, I was able to surpass his dulled sagacity with the ginger flick of a tongue, but now that he knows I'm cheating my friend, intrigue sharpens his wit — though he doesn't testify against me.

"Then you should invite him to sit with us at the bar." Pete's lips crimp in a friendly grin. "It's good for being sociable."

I say nothing, welcoming my downfall once again.

~~~~~

"So where are you from, Dallon?" They're already on a first-name basis — sickening.

Observing as my friend becomes intimate with my abuser definitely wasn't penned on my agenda, but it's not like I can inform Pete of that, so a scowl soaks in my drink as I wait for the hell to elapse.

Dallon sloshes his whiskey against the walls of his chalice, head erect to construct contact between Pete and him. "New Jersey — Newark, more specifically."

Excess substance shuffles down Pete's throat in a mellow roll as nostalgia impinges on the mahogany color of his irises. "Really? We're also from Newark."

Dallon's eyes hold a certain snap to them, an escape of anaphylaxis hovering on the horizon for whomever gazes into the orbs, and his returning smile pinches his lips. "It's really nice down there, especially in summer."

For the first time since the commencement of the conversation, Dallon ogles my trembling form with a subtle glimpse, where panic ferments in my entire body except for the pupils, who are convulsing with unfiltered animosity.

Summer. That was how long our affliction lasted, until a foggy day in August gagged our hilarity with the sharpest knife in the drawer of Dallon's home that fumed formaldehyde from the roof, the only place that gave a damn about people like us, and as we smoked cigarettes in a pitch black storm, giggles sputtered from our lips, and it was obvious that we had made it through hell.

But what came later counteracted it. However, Dr. Saporta would feed me to the lions if I relived that day, so all I can do is mince Dallon with my internal vision and protect my stomach from the churning rhythm of dread.

"Now it's as cold as the arctic, and summer is such a foreign concept." Dallon's voice caving with dejection, he annexes, "Always is so alien, though."

"Didn't take you for a poet," I growl, perspective centered in my water.

Dallon's hands slink towards mine, embraced by soot-chapped leather and eager for reconciliation. "I suppose hanging around you does that to a person." His cobalt stones arrest my attention, weaving a rigid net from hesitance as we delve into the bitter past.

I shy away, because I'm a fucking coward, and Dallon Weekes is not mine to fall for, but he somehow thinks he is, which makes it all the more perilous when I refuse his company.

"Anyway..." Pete continues, miffed by our scene. "Would you like to hang out sometime, Dallon?"

How can I die if I'm already dead, right?

A wink breaks from my abuser's eyelashes, insensible to Pete, reprimanding me, and a smooth "yes" tiptoes from Dallon's manipulative tongue.

An unsettling anecdote zooms by, analogous to my rendezvous with Pete at the coffee shop, where my friend's hand captures a pen to scrawl a phone number against a random napkin abandoned on the bar.

Dallon quells the pleas of the paper by encasing it in his pocket, cheekbones perching high on his face. "I'll see you later then."

That's what he said two years ago — and he was resolute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: ugh why is Dallon such a cunt
> 
> he and saporta should chill together
> 
> current vibe: when we watched a video with corbin bleu and my friend was all pissed bc tumblr made him enticing for me so I was just talking about corbinators and shit
> 
> ~DaCancoonA


	19. when I said reinvent love I didn't mean this

Out of all the things I should be pondering, the topic of Dallon's gloves is the one that snares me, tosses my mind into oblivion with a prompt giggle and the release of an autonomous finger.

The ceiling staring down at me is a cue to goad my mind into thinking about the gloves — their texture, their gloomy color, their audacity to slither across terrains such as the bar and abduct my attention so thoroughly.

Dallon told me once that he hated wearing gloves, as they made him feel like a criminal who was supposed to shepherd their touch into a meadow of surreptitiousness, and he never thought that he could carry out something illegal, not in a million years.

But now that he did, it's appropriate, and the gloves are the only things that cloak the intrusive fingers who caused it — it's almost like he's ashamed.

No, that can't be. He knows what he did, but...when I saw him at the bar, he was oblique in a misconstrued air of presumptuousness, and that's his approach wrapped into his new personality, so whatever secrets mummified in his mind are now only dwindling.

It's a pity Dallon refuses to remember the extirpation he inflicted on a world that was comprised of just me, a lonely drifter until this guy immigrated to my perception, because my life practically revolves around it, and when my fellow citizens celebrate the gyration of the Earth around the sun, another gyration alleges to be more significant, and I accept its requisition.

The simple fact is that this event consumes my time, my social life, my sanity, and it's a bittersweet taste that I nevertheless swallow, because I have to do so in order to spare the people around me from the terror.

The same people I try to save maintain an aversion towards my kind, but Dallon never did, and maybe that's why this individual drag on a cigarette was particularly arduous to breathe away, but then it was like becoming asthmatic when he began to torment me, and my inhaler was hidden under the tender floorboards in the spot right below Dallon's foot, where it was left for dead.

But still, the mystery of his hand-wear remains in the atmosphere, and I might ask for some gloves of my own.

~~~~~

"Where are your mittens?" My hands furl around the threshold, apprehension galvanizing my fingertips as they gouge into the oak.

My friend is situated on the couch near the fireplace, the crackling of the flames hollowing his ears as a simpering rose lights his cheeks.

Pete's vision departs from his book as it balances on his thumb, disengaging his legs from under him. "My mittens?"

My feet scrape the floor, an anxious tilt in my gait. "Yeah, didn't you bring any?"

"Did you not?" Pete shifts further, withdrawing his finger from the middle of the book to devote his engrossment to me.

"I probably left them at the club."

Pete is unconvinced, but he knows better than to investigate me. "Check my bag. It's in my room."

Without a word, I abscond from the area, leaving Pete in startled astonishment before he can call back to me about how someone such as myself could be so foolish.

By some luck, I am drawn towards his room, the nearest to the threshold from which I entered, and the knob incarcerates my will to avoid my compulsion, so it's flicked once left and once right before I close myself inside the strawberry field of Pete's room.

His satchel lounges on the wooden tiles, zipper and flap diverging from halfway around and revealing a plethora of colors from products within the bag.

My extremities whisk through the items, exposing variegated clothing pieces, dirtied scraps of paper, and leaves collected in the turmoil of vacation — but none of the pills Pete claims he takes.

Forgetting my prior duty, I crush the flap of the bag on itself and scamper from the room, the door agape from my haste. My socks walk their fabric across the floor, accompanied by the electric force of friction, and my breathing wobbles with my physique, readjusting in the threshold again.

Pete descries me near the wooden frame of the aperture, brows raised from his book. "Did you get the mittens?"

"Did you get your pills?" My respiration elongates the air, frisking with the colors surrounding it, and the man's expression melts into one of foreboding.

"Patrick, what are you talking about?" Pete is generally calm, except for a fidgety rainfall of fingers on his knee.

"You said you take pills, right?"

My friend's face spills into the ink on the page, as black as the words pounded into the paper. "Patrick..."

I boycott a resignation, clarifying, "You professed that the pills are the only things that work. Now where the hell are they?"

Pete's view flickers around the room, scavenging for anyone creeping behind the curtains. "Is Gerard here?"

Teeth lacerating my lip with an injurious anxiety, I reply, "No, he's at the store."

A flower of guilt wilts in Pete's stomach, but it's a flower amidst a garden, so that blossom is worth very little in relieving nervousness. "Okay, come and sit down." Pete lures me towards him, and my head nestles into his quaking shoulders without proper deliberation.

A lone tear stumbles down my cheek, grappling for a switch to end it all. "Pete, I don't want you to ruin your life like this."

"Shh," he coos, boxing me in a fluttering embrace. "Don't worry about it."

Don't waste your time on him. He almost touched your arm.

"I will worry about it, because I'm tired of you pretending that things are all right, when they're really not." My doe eyes loop their fixation on the boy whose arms harbor my emotions, but that harbor is breaking, and a storm is stirring in the skies. "We're all screwed up in this place, and maybe that's okay, but starving yourself of medication is going to make you more than just a head-case, and the people around you won't be able to figure out how to help."

My speech ticks through Pete's thoughts, kissing flames onto every structure and burning them to the ground with a signature of beauty printed in the ash. "What if I don't want help?"

"Everyone wants help." My visage is sketched like the desert sand — somber, melancholy, and arid. "We just don't care to admit it."

Antagonism pricks Pete's Hudson River irises, and it soon dominates his entire cognition. "When I said the pills worked the best, I didn't say they were favored."

I recant my previous nepotism towards my friend's embrace, praying that he didn't espy my infuriated quivering, and my hands itch for something stimulating so that I won't tear apart my relationship, but they eventually flat line in a bursting spark to make way for my rant. "What, would you rather shoot up with cocaine? Extinguish all your problems with a powder that doesn't give a fuck about you? Because if that's what healing means in your context, you'll be dead within the minute."

"I don't want to die. I just...I want to live, you know? I want to feel my own heart, love someone who is gentle and kind, but those pills forbid me from doing those things, so then what? That is called dying." Pete's touch evaporates within his hair, a sigh trailing behind as a conditioner. "But yeah, I know drugs that waft poison will intravenously swallow me from the inside, and I don't sit around waiting for that day, because I value life and all its benefits, and prescriptions are the ones stomping me out, not my natural mind."

My fingers jab into an eyelid united with the skin below, attempting to make sense of this whole thing. "Pills are supposed to alleviate your symptoms and brighten your mood, not renege on their promise of restoring your cheer."

You're going to lose friends for being such a smartass.

Pete secures my hands in his own as some sort of solace, so that at least one part of me is near him. The size of his pupils fluctuates inquisitively, locking my focus to them as he speaks. "Patrick, I stopped taking my meds when I met you, and do you know why that is?"

My head is bowed to study our connection as it whirs back and forth in an answer.

The man compresses this tether between us in an act of reassurance, continuing, "Because I saw potential in you — potential for a friendship, potential for a wild expedition, potential to make me feel for the first time in a while — and that was fucking glorious." A smile inspirits Pete's countenance, a liberation that sings of splendor. "I cannot describe how elated I was when I saw you in the coffee shop after you picked up Mikey from daycare. You must've been pretty damn special to evoke those emotions. Truth is, you've always been special, even if you never knew it, and if you say I'm going to die, I want your image rooted in my eyes."

"God, now I'm crying," I laugh, soiling my thumb with the saltwater concoction. "I'm too weak for my own good."

"Crying isn't weak," Pete contradicts, shaving the residual water away. "Crying is a sign that you survived — and damn, that's fucking courageous."

I intercept my friend's hand in the air, implementing a stationary latch on it as I cower away. "Yeah, I survived, but you're not going to if you keep this up."

Pete enforces nothing to wriggle free from my grasp, only shrugs around it. "It's not like I have anything to lose."

"You have me, right?" I pry. "Tell me you didn't forget that there are people who care about you."

Pete then worms out of my bonds, panicked. "No one cares about me."

"I do, and as a result, I've noticed that your hands shake when you hold things, that your script is always slightly rough and vapid. I've noticed that when you write, you scrawl things across the paper, because if you took your time, it still wouldn't look perfect. I've noticed that you dry the tears of others before you dry your own, because you know what it feels like to suffer. All those things I love about you will be gone if you don't take your goddamn pills.

"You've already sacrificed your body by refraining from medicating yourself. Now don't sacrifice your mind by thinking you're in this alone."

A print of a grin traces the edge of Pete's lips, introducing positive ideas to his array. "Maybe I'm not."

On this occasion, I'm the one to squeeze our hands together. "I know you're not."

Pete unrolls a flow of breath from his trachea, declaring, "This is what it's like to feel, Patrick." My friend's limbs slice through the area, beholding the magnificence of nature, of being awake. "And trust me — it's miraculous."

A giggle somersaults off of my tongue as a kiss sprouts on Pete's raven hair. "You've experienced enough for now," I dictate, inhaling the strawberry fields again. "Will you finally take your pills?"

Reciprocating my action, Pete applies a kiss to my own peroxide locks and promises, "I'll consider it."

And with the current state of things, that's enough for my standards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cries bc this chapter
> 
> current vibe: when I put Mad As Rabbits at the top of this chapter on wattpad just bc I referenced it in the title
> 
> ~Da!


	20. marrying a papaya is definitely punk rock

My fingers fondle the length of the oak wall, shrouded in the black fabric that Pete did, in fact, store in his bag, and it isn't as worthwhile as I had envisioned.

I predicted vibrations of suppressed memories curdling in my fingers, and though they're ghastly, they're necessary, and like Pete, I just want to feel — feel the jagged texture of the walls, feel the erosion filing my skin, feel the reality of knowing why Dallon chose to wear those gloves, even when drinking a beverage with condensation adhering to the sides.

No one does that, not even me, and I consider myself the worthiest of employing archaic and abnormal methods to soothe my restless mind, but now the gloves are protecting my flesh with the utmost security, and I almost hope to wear them more often, but that would remind me of Dallon, and I've had enough of him.

This is only an experiment. I'm not...I'm not trying to die again.

But even so, milliliters of water swish in my lungs and subtract oxygen from the equation, and even though it is slight, it's phenomenally imperative that I attend to it before I drown, yet I've drowned many times before, and this is the rainbow after rain because of its gentility.

And despite the connotation of these gloves, I tear them from my body with disdain, banishing them to the floor so I won't have to look at them.

I am nothing like Dallon Weekes.

~~~~~

We're relaxing in the living room when the echoing screeching of the door reduces the beams of sunlight to nothing more than an unimportant detail.

The aperture eases open, a shrill voice punishing the person to whom it's directed, but judging by its wavering tone, the volume isn't often exercised.

"Gerard Arthur Way!" a woman shrieks, marching into the room with her fingers pinching her companion's ear. "Can you believe what he did?"

Pete and I trade befuddled expressions, soon projecting them onto the two people entering the place.

"Let go of me, Lindsey," Gerard complains, feet inching away while the rest of him stays stapled to the woman next to his crouched figure.

Her lips, padded by a bright red similar to autumn leaves, part to justify her case. "I saw this man cutting flowers from the garden I planted when I came here last." She turns to him, brows stressed. "You know how much I love those tulips."

Gerard continues to squirm in his friend's grasp, speaking through the cruelty being engraved into his body. "Relax — I just wanted to give them to Frank."

In Lindsey's excitement, her hands release Gerard's ear and primp for some gossip. "Who's this Frank?"

"Some kid he met at the club." Pete's hair folds over his extremities, eyes meandering around the room. "A lot like Stockholm syndrome, if you ask me."

Lindsey pivots towards the man next to her, trimming her hands to her hips accusingly. "You went to another gay bar?"

"Does he have a reputation for this?" I chime in from the end of the couch.

Lindsey addresses me with a withered sigh. "That's where he took me for my fourteenth birthday."

Gerard smirks, but after a prompt smack to the head, he protests, "Hey, we had a good time!"

"No, we did not. That guy who smelled like urine kept trying to talk to us, and we only got in because you pretended to be too drunk to function, so the bouncer just pitied you."

Gerard simply shrugs, defeated, and I use that as an opportunity to inquire, "So who are you?"

Lindsey exiles the wrinkles on her ebony skirt to the void, responding, "Gerard's cousin, though most of the time I'm just his overprotective mother, because he can't seem to do anything correctly."

Gerard starts to riot, but the woman hushes him. "I'll make some lunch," she declares, skirt billowing as she exits the room to prepare sandwiches.

Pete rises, shouldering Gerard as he migrates to another place while he waits for lunch. "Are you sure she's not your mother?"

A river of breath scuffs the eighteen year-old's lips, hand jostling his hair. "I don't even know anymore."

"Make sure to invite Frank over!" Lindsey yells from the other room.

As Pete departs with a straightness to his walk, he suggests, "Why not bring Dallon, too?"

Wonderful. I sure love that Dallon Weekes fellow, so much that it's like drowning.

~~~~~

"When is lunch ready?" the newly introduced Frank Iero moans, propping his feet up on the coffee table and hoping that Lindsey doesn't stomp in here and slap them away.

"Maybe if you actually got in here and helped, you could eat sooner!" the woman quips, voice extending from the kitchen.

I would've registered it as a joke, but Frank seems pretty intent on devouring millions of sandwiches, whom he proclaimed as his favorite food, his one and only true love, so he ascends from his chair without an objection to go and assist Lindsey.

And now that the air is devoid of one person, that allows space for the notice of one particular man, clad in thin suspenders and gloves just as dark, a smirk tinting the edge of his pink lips without a worry of repercussions for acting so arrogantly.

He dabbles with the unlit cigarette suspended at the cliff of his mouth, ruminating, "That Frank guy seems like a good kid."

"You're the kid. He's older than you," I bark, fed-up with Dallon's tangential observations that only he cares about but thinks everyone else does, even though palpitating eyelids and focus drifting to anywhere but him.

He hums in a prolonged tide as he develops an accord. "By one year."

"A year is a long time."

Dallon slants towards me, as if proposing a challenge. "Two years is a long time."

"And by definition, three years is a long time," Pete rambles, brows puckering. "Shall I continue with four?"

"I just like counting sometimes," Dallon rescues, lolling on the chair again. "It's interesting, how the numbers fit together and retain that certain merit to whomever beholds them, don't you think?"

"My math grades have been on a rollercoaster since ninth grade," Pete chuckles.

The cigarette trundles in Dallon's attenuate fingers, being studied by the person possessing it. "Yes, I abhor mathematics. The numbers are fascinating, though."

The cushions near Pete ruffle as he stands, smoothing down his pants as he pivots towards another room.

"Where are you going?" I demand, tugging at his shirt as he passes me so that he remains stationary.

A laugh escapes Pete's mouth, subconsciously condescending in nature. "To the bathroom — relax."

"Don't be clingy." A sneer elongates Dallon's bleached complexion, and it's awarded with a socially unacceptable hand gesture, but he simply giggles, amused by my ferocity.

I don't aim to supply Dallon with any more ammunition to gun me down, so my extremities unwind from Pete's clothing hesitantly, my anxiousness now quivering within my feet.

As Pete's frame disappears behind the wall, he assures, "I'll be back soon, if you're concerned about my wellbeing."

Cynosure flitting over a crinkle in his glove, my attacker refuses to acknowledge Pete visually. "Stay safe," Dallon warns as a compromise. "Don't fall in."

And drown.

Promptly after Pete is whirled away to another portion of the house, Dallon's face gleams with a business-like stare.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" My bones budge under my jacket, anticipating an icy comment from the man reposing in the chair across from me.

"You do the same." When my demeanor implies denial, he adds, "Come on — it's obvious. You hate me almost as much as you hate yourself, and everyone can see it."

I fiddle with the seam of a couch pillow, fitting it between my phalanges and sliding it out a moment later. "I didn't think it was that clear."

"Well it is, and people are going to start asking you about it." Dallon's words are draped in acerbity, decorating his ominous character with the precision of a blade.

My eyes circle around, shadowing my figure with a pillow that I've stopped playing with long enough to relocate. "I'm sure you'll love the attention."

"That's not the point."

"Then what is?" I roar, until my voice is subdued at the thought of Lindsey, Frank, and Gerard hearing from the kitchen. "Because all you seem to do is craft your sentences with a pinch of sarcasm here, a dash of animosity there, and I've given up trying to decipher whether or not you're legitimate about what you say to me, because you act as though reconciliation is on your mind, but you speak as though it's the farthest thing away."

Building an empire of egotism, Dallon twirls his cigarette between a slim finger and its partner, musing, "Reconciliation is an intriguing matter, now isn't it?"

"Perhaps, but why the hell would I try to reconcile with someone like you?"

A leering smile brands Dallon's face, disgracing him as a lascivious criminal who can't be trusted. "Because I meant something to your petty brain, if you don't remember, and you don't relinquish that because of a few psychologists who tell you that it's beneficial. You never listened to anyone except me, and though you're bombarding my apparently terrible head with hatred of the past, you're still sitting with me when you could be making lunch, and that's a fantastically infatuating thing. You want to be here, because you absolutely crave our time together."

"That's a lie." I leap from my chair, but Dallon restrains me with the posing of a finger.

"Is it?"

"O-of course," I stammer, descending into the cushion once again as confusion fogs my contemplation.

Dallon's hands pressure the armrests, climbing and dissociating from me. He pauses by the door, sentencing the cigarette to its last ember as it tumbles to the floor, closing with his final words. "Once you sit down and weigh your options, you'll come to understand that I'm not quite the villain you think I am."

And then I'm alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: oh my gOD dallon is a bitch
> 
> current vibe: when I told my friend that she lives in a condom and the rest of my squad just accepted it and now we casually refer to her condo as a condom
> 
> ~Dickota (get it cause a co,,,,ndo,, m)


	21. lindsey ballato is my mother

The voices have gone away.

I don't know how, but the stagnant blight of Etep is but a memory, passing with an odd expression and a pang of fear before it's devoured by the sink, and I don't know whether I should run for my life or stick around out of curiosity.

I'm convinced that both would entail my defeat, but with the state of things, it appears as though Etep is the one to be defeated.

Now that Dallon has shown up, inflicting a fervid sort of rage upon my normally docile composure, Etep is sidetracked by attempting to eliminate the new contender, and he hasn't done a very good job of it.

He's just disappeared completely, not even capable of trying his best, and my steadiness is gradually increasing with each minute he's absent.

I'm confident in saying, however, that he'll be back, and he'll sure as hell be angry with me for betraying him, as if regaining access to my own mind is some kind of treachery that he simply can't stand and will have punished by execution.

But then where would he live if I'm decapitated? With me, abruptly shoved into the ground with a scarcity of dirt piled atop my chilled body and my dismembered head tucked gently under my arm as if a basketball.

Because Etep has made it quite conspicuous that he never leaves, so with this knowledge, it's fair to say that he's only dormant, refueling himself before he strikes with twice the blow to my sanity, but it's not like I can be bothered to be responsive towards it, because he's been smiting me since the dawn of my post-traumatic stress disorder diagnostic meeting after the event, where things were only heating up, and if he has the audacity to declare his superiority over me on our first encounter, there's no doubt that he'll observe the Napoleon complex further, tearing my grasp on life to smithereens with the lack of artwork to glamorize them.

The real artwork, I come to understand, is not the scraps of destruction, because I've professed my hatred for that mentality many times before, rather the idea that Etep is a metaphor for Dallon, and as I brood on that, it becomes more and more legitimate, until it emerges with a blinding glory as the only absoluteness.

Too often are we raveled in affairs we don't understand, but they seem charming enough for discussion, so we give them a go, and that was me for two years, but now I've finally understood why this shit is spinning around me.

There can never be a cessation for pleasure. It's always either Etep or Dallon, mental or physical, and there's no judging which one is worse, because I've been abused by both, and people just write it off as either a symptom or an attacker who was never jailed because my case is somehow superficial to their biased jury ruling.

And because of that negligence, I've ceased my uproar for a friendlier stance whose only purpose is to promote my likeability as I cluck at how poorly it's working, because I'm still defiant, and I'm still irritable, and I'm still the mess that I've always been, but at least a lick of pessimism has been composted — or that's only what the psychologists enjoy, in which case bedeviling them is the least of my chores.

My mother instructs otherwise, but she's no use as well, seeing as she aims to send me to a mental hospital, and it's not so much the environment of it but the stigma associated with the place, because not everyone is aware that receiving help is okay, that it's taking care of yourself, and a mental institution only represents a madhouse for serial killers that must be shunned from society, and it's a tragic ideology.

There's no evidence to claim that I wouldn't fit in with the people there, though, but with the departure of Etep, things are looking up for my health.

~~~~~

Crumbs of bread leap into the water, fleeing their life of cohesion and joints to their family to live their own destiny, and for one moment I debate jumping into the frozen lake to join them on their quest, but I'd die of hypothermia before I could get a job, so I decide against it.

"The ducks look happy today," Lindsey remarks, tossing a chunk of transmuted wheat to the feathered animals, with a simpering shade to her cheeks.

True enough, secluded parties of ducks float around, utilizing the wonder of small talk with the others like them and chirping jubilantly without a specific route, just leisurely drifting with the wind to wherever it takes them.

"If you keep feeding them, they'll never leave," I caution, dividing the bread anyway, sort of like a pastime to stimulate my restless limbs.

"Who says I want that? We're high up, and we don't have many people here, so why not use animals to keep us company?" The breeze brushes against Lindsey's crimson lipstick, toying with her sloppily pigtailed hair in the process and dispersing strands of black to the sky around the beaming woman.

My shoulders tense, then relaxing in a human gesture that I'm required to exploit. "I suppose that's a fair opinion."

"Gerard also hates ducks, so having them around is an added bonus," Lindsey includes, the blanched teeth saddled within her mouth being unmasked. "I'm still not over my fourteenth birthday."

"It seems like you had a good time, though," I jest. "I don't know what the problem is."

My new friend's limb protrudes to assail my clavicle, a giggle following. "The idea of two fourteen year-olds in a gay bar doesn't scream safety."

"Pete isn't screaming safety, either," I aberrate, dampening the aura of our conversation. "He hasn't been taking his pills."

Lindsey's sharpened brows cave inward, suddenly distressed. "Why not?"

A sigh launches from my lungs, hand blending through my platinum locks. "He went on this whole emotional spiel about how they remove his emotions, and he apparently hates that."

The scarlet rows on the woman's face gather in disturbance, pondering, and she eventually rebuts, "Well wouldn't you?"

"I have too many emotions," I invalidate. "I go to a terrible psychologist for them, and I probably earn more when I'm with those 'doctors'."

"Psychologists are trash, in my personal opinion," Lindsey agrees, tapping my knee in consolation. "I ditched all of mine. My motto is to guide your own life and stay out of danger while doing so. It excludes all those pests that call themselves doctors."

My shoulders organize themselves in an upward position, wrangling the circumstances. "Pete also fired his psychologists, and now he's not taking his medication. I'm not sure where it's getting him, because he's definitely in danger, and his moodiness is showing. He's leaving rooms a lot as if it's a casual thing, but it's not like he brought anything in his bag to do."

"You should ask Pete about it," Lindsey suggests. "Friendships are based on trust, and part of trust is relaying how you feel."

"Feeling is what Pete says the pills take away."

"Then you have to give him an emotion so powerful that not even the pills can silence it." Lindsey's chocolate eyes tunnel into my own, confident in her advice and willing me to judge it the same. "I feel positive that you'll be able to do it, Patrick."

"What makes you think that?" My head swerves to the side to avoid connecting with Lindsey, just like many times before. "I can't even control my own emotions."

Her hands cross into each other, like those psychologists whom we both hate. "I find that it's easier to be honest with other people than it is to be honest with yourself."

"Just like it's easier to punch down your own walls than it is to see others do the same." The words course from my mouth with streaks of twilight insinuating the crepuscule skies, decimated by the lowering sun.

"Exactly." Lindsey's tone emanates a mellow disposition, doleful in its undertones and murky in the mutilated reeds that conceal the river grass, and she includes to her portfolio a clever "you'd rather die before you see someone else so much as scratch themselves".

"That, or you're just searching for excuses to bring about your own funeral." My eyes embroil Lindsey's with a thoughtful concentration, and it suddenly dawns on me how much she and Gerard are similar.

Their noses, trimmed up in shape, are always seamed with the firm strings of a smile, and those strings also pleat their fawn eyes on their quest to vanquish the entirety of the two's faces with a jocular grin and a grain of sass to further their personalities. Their dynamics are different, with Lindsey portraying the sort of mother archetype and Gerard the free spirit, but their harmonization is a unique breed that would seem, at least to others, as a clashing force but is actually only a deviation of the norm, and as I've proclaimed countless times before, normal is boring.

And Gerard Way and Lindsey Ballato are far from boring.

But soon, Lindsey's smile fades for the gloominess of my conjecture, allowing, "That's a possibility, I guess."

My breathing shivers, thoughtful. "I need to be sure, or else my anxiety brain won't leave me be."

A minuscule giggle dances beneath the rising moon, the fragrance of night permeating its sender as her hair replicates the dreary background. "Anxiety is a mindfuck."

I requite the laugh, concurring, "Preach." Instantaneously, however, my mood draws as dim as the evening air, spiraling into the earth that buzzes under my legs.

The wind exhales in operatic cries, dismissing our static conversation for the hiss of frost against our cheeks as it marvels at the rosy color it paints, yet we're settled evermore within the trees, a blanket lodging our quaking shoulders to reject the biting temperature.

"Anxiety gets boring after a while, though," I criticize, tightening the curtains hanging around my shoulders and steaming the air with a misty breath, a natural cigarette that illustrates my vision with smoke assembled entirely of my will. "But it's always present, and it sucks."

"More credible words have never been spoken, my friend."

And as dusk grazes our lashes, my fright is everlasting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I LOVE LINDSEY AIGHT
> 
> ur all dead in the next chapter
> 
> get shrekt n00b
> 
> current vibe: the fact that my computer teacher hates me bc of what I did in his photoshop club
> 
> ~Dakoot


	22. lmao gotta zayn

Nothing moves in the cottage under the Caribou skies.

The fire is but a heap of ash and embers whose flames were stolen by the thief known as the moon, and a rigor varnishes the wooden strips of the floor with a curt hush to the activities of the fluttering drapes.

No one is to know what schemes Pete Wentz is fulfilling in the isolation of his bedroom, but the night is a snitch and whispers a tale of foreboding into my ear before it's stifled by the protection of the walls.

And as my toes tattoo a burlesque onto the panels of lumber beneath them, the faint clicking of my friend's plotting is audible under the slit of his door, where quieted beams of light splinter the wood and alert me to the danger progressing within the confines of the area.

The melancholic droning of tears down one's face declares itself as the paramount ruler to any form of acumen feeding into Pete's cognition, and it shows by the vigilant lock holstered inside the knob and the muffled theatric of sobbing excavating the hall.

My fist stands at attention by the door, unsure of its motives, however helpful, but after an agitating pin against the ground in the shape of something more portentous, impetus is a drug produced a gallon at a time.

To my astonishment, the lock was never fastened at all, forgotten in a hurry to schedule one's own massacre, and as I enter, I'd rather the lock be sealed with superglue than confront this scene.

A monster of a being grovels in the space near my feet, an assortment of pills brandishing swords meant to injure the person who has already injured himself enough, and not a flash of remorse fashions his murky demeanor.

"Patrick," my friend warns, back eschewing me for the mercy of his drugs. "Go to bed. That's where everyone else is, and I know you love fitting in with the crowd."

My response wavers on the ledge of my tongue, not yet verbal arms outstretched to balance itself, just to fall back into my mouth and plummet down my throat.

"Frivolous," Pete mutters, a spit dredging his remark. "That's what you are."

A laugh spears my lungs with the intensity of this matter, shocked. "And what about you? Wasting your life on the pills you insist on hating?" My head droops in disbelief. "This isn't what I meant when I told you to take your meds."

"Then what did you mean?" Loose ends of malice disproportion Pete's generally easygoing personality, combing a shadow through its waters. "If you want the best for me, don't be so fucking ambiguous."

"It isn't my fault that you overreacted to a simple opinion!"

And in that moment, my companion's body rotates to present a masterpiece of prescriptions, spelling out the sole word no in medicated beads of spite that embellish his true inclination towards humanity, which is deeply outlined in his abrupt disheveled hygiene.

As I analyze the production, Pete's breath converses with mine as the flecks of gold in his irises become visible — and wondrously beautiful — and the silence is captured for the longest duration imaginable, but I break away, flustered.

I attempt persuasion from a different aspect. "Why were you trying to overdose?" My voice is the size of a mouse, scampering around the room in hopes of discovering an adequate reaction but returning fruitless.

All Pete does is stare out the window while its blinds are still crumpled over each other, as if he could make something out of the thin slices that board him from the outside world, because an effect is the exact opposite to what he's earning with the dismal hum he provides to everything.

"Why is it important to you?" Pete's sentences bang against the covered glass with his focus still solid, and I almost march over to him to see what he's so fixated on if there's a veil over it, but he would most likely cast me aside with a brutal grabbing of my arm, and a panic attack would draw a spotlight to me when it should be readily pointed towards my friend.

"It's almost like you want to die," I scorn, wrists chaffing my hips with the fierce velocity at which they pace to distract me from the shame of this situation.

"Well we humans tend to find people who are like us." Pete's neck swivels to address me, an eerie glow slicking his eyes. "So it seems we've both got a problem."

"I already have a psychologist. I don't need this, especially after you said that isn't how relationships work."

A slight pounce commands Pete's shoes, just enough momentum to startle me as he quips, "And you said that everyone wants help, and a psychologist has a doctorate in repairing peoples' twisted minds, so I'm pretty certain we fit the criteria."

"Psychologists aren't our friends, Pete." My stare is as still as the night, strong in a way that I've never been. "I thought you knew that."

"Psychologists are the ones who tell me to swallow my meds, though I find it cute when you tell me the same."

"You never listen."

My friend shrugs absently. "Yeah, but it's still cute. You're cute. But those pills — they are not cute." Sins tremor in Pete's eyes, pragmatic about one aspect of this debate.

"Do you think I give a shit about whether or not you like taking your pills?" My brows cramp, appalled at my friend's complaints. "Because I don't, but I do care about keeping your heart beating.

"The way you refrain from medicating yourself, you...you make dying seem like something skillful in denouncing any sort of solution, but that's so unhealthy for you." A sigh swings from my windpipe, depicting my insurmountable stress. "And I know that you don't owe society anything, especially your existence, but you better stay fucking alive for all of our sakes."

No response, only the pensive scowl of my friend who's walking the road to death.

"Will you do that, Pete Wentz?" I press, desperation on the cusp of wrecking my soul's faith.

The man acknowledges me with a subtle hint of poignancy in his eyes, and a word a friend never wants to hear is uttered. "No."

~~~~~

The malevolent wind tosses my step as it pays close mind to the tears wandering my face with an awestruck expression plastered onto its palette of frigid air that beats me up with every passing second, but after a few moments, the death feels nice, like it's what I deserve.

The concept that everything is my fault has been pounded into me since birth, and it's finally caught on.

And perhaps the person who caused most of that self-hatred will have something to offer me with the cigarette chatting with him in rings of smoke and accompanying the witty grin dangling from his nose.

When he sees me, though, the mysterious ambience is pommeled.

"What are you doing?" Dallon's inflection is flavored by bewilderment, severing the bond between him and his cigarette as his back straightens from leaning on the house.

Dallon's tie is crinkled under his fleece jacket, peering over the v-neck of his sweater and viewing its faded surroundings with a fresh vantage that no human could decipher, and his hair, usually gelled in elaborate coiffures, is as unkempt as I've seen it, styled by the tumultuous breeze, and even his eyes — those sapphire eyes — aren't onerous to look at, because they've been dulled by a burden sleeting on their owner to the point of a dusty layer upon glass, and it's all coated in irresoluteness.

The man looks so fucking innocent that it's difficult to remember how much he hurt me, how much my life dotes on the suffering, and I've become so cavalier to this scent that it barely means a thing what he did.

Even so, I could never love someone like him, yet it seems that my promises are off the table considering the vexing circumstances, and before I know it, Dallon's pressed once again into the wooden structure of the Caribou house, an old friend's hunger glossing his lips.

The affair is painful, and Dallon's breath reeks of decomposition from a familiar blade, but it's what I need, so our mouths are synchronized with the tears of dissolution and not a drop of regret, even though there should be a rainstorm of it.

The problem is that it feels so right, so natural, so much like the past, and it's anyway eluded me that the past is the thing chaining me to psychologists and pills and anxiety, but terror has become glamorous in this clutch, and we're both just scavenging for an excuse to relive it, so no one questions why I'm suddenly kissing my attacker and why there's no objection to the action, because it's consensual in the matter that we're simply laboring to collapse.

There aren't any people here besides us to witness our decease, and we could be dying forever, but I've had enough.

I peel away with a snarl tangling my face, berating both of us for being so foolish with the recognition that it was mostly my doing, and to evade the miffed countenance of Dallon Weekes, my ambition turns towards the water.

"Where are you going?" my assailant calls, fear taxing his volume, but I block out his pleas.

There's a lake near here. Maybe I can envision myself drowning again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: u bitches been fucked
> 
> current vibe: when my friend's mom dated a member of a band that looks like a mix between cybermen and furries
> 
> ~Dakota!


	23. don't trap me on this trampoline

When I kissed Pete, I was in a bathroom stall for an hour with the intentions of sorting through the variables, but with Dallon, it seems like nothing special, and it's perplexing how my friend is a load and my attacker is a casualty, when it should be the other way around, or at least be equal in the troubling field.

But it's not the kiss I'm fretting about — it's the aftermath and what transpired before that caused it.

Speaking of the cause, I should be with Pete to make sure he doesn't kill himself on the pills he says he doesn't take, but he would probably continue with his endeavor and barely pity me when I observe his death, but then again, he wouldn't want me to miss the show either.

So in a state of indecisiveness, I find myself sitting by the lake, submerged in the snow without a jacket to absorb my heat, but with the status of my soul, it's not like I have any heat for it to absorb.

And I'm perfect fine (for the most part), so seeing a drunk Frank Iero stumbling into my path and crashing into the ground beside me is quite the shock.

A half-empty beer bottle wades in his hand, towed around by jittery phalanges, and his hair is even messier than Dallon's. "Hey, Patrick!" Frank squeals, underestimating his sonority.

"Um, hi, Frank."

I've never spoken to this Iero kid one on one before, for he was always with either Gerard or Lindsey, endeavoring to appeal to both of them, and I've been the meek guy in the corner that no one dares talk to because they're afraid of hurting me, so those roles haven't been compatible yet.

"So how are you?" A pinched smile fits Frank's visage, stereotypical of teenage girls ready for gossip.

"I'm doing well, except for the fact Pete's about to fucking die, and even after I knew that, I kissed Dallon."

Frank's expression is miffed, partly because I snapped at him, partly because he didn't realize Pete is in danger, and partly because everyone can tell I hate Dallon. "Well why did you do that?" He appears genuinely confused, and I somewhat pardon him, primarily because he's drunk and insensible.

My vision circulates the pillow terrain of my hands, made soft by the lotion I refuse to apply to my arm but continue to apply elsewhere. "Because I couldn't control my emotions."

Frank pats my knee reassuringly, the best he can do in this intoxicated perspective. "We all have those days. You just gotta get through them, and then you're a-ok." A proud beam shades his pale face, unsure if his advice was helpful, but he's interpreting it with his own judgment, regardless of whether or not I'm still broken down.

My head whips around to glare at this Iero fellow, unnerving for him and fueling for me. "But those days aren't every day for other people."

"Are you constantly tormented by it?" Frank's words are dedicated to his feet, rinsed in scruffy tennis shoe materials and splattered by snowflakes.

"Basically."

"Try alcohol," Frank recommends, beer luging down his throat. "You'll feel great."

I flick his bottle delicately, examining it for a conclusion of "why the hell would I do that?"

Frank shrugs. "It's what I do."

"And you're drunk." I cock my head, disapproving.

"Fair point." More beer rides a toboggan down his neck, sliding around while he attempts to speak. "But I'm not quite drunk."

My brows arch, an aqueduct for the ebbing snow surrounding our frozen figures. "Oh?"

Reflection establishes its trade on Frank's rouge lips, playful in nature. "It's a memorable kind of veneer."

A scant chuckle blows out of my lungs. "Being known as the town drunk isn't as memorable as you'd probably like it to be."

Frank disagrees with a mere turning of the skull. "You get some intriguing information when people think you're passed out."

My arm juts out to smack my new friend. "You deceptive bastard!"

Frank better not have been watching me since he came, or else my paranoia will understand no boundaries. I thought I was doing well with keeping my fear on the down low, but this...what if he installed cameras around the house?

I kick my questions from their throne of pretentiousness, calming my mind temporarily. "Even if the information is enticing, I'm not risking an alcohol addiction."

"Whatever." The remnants of Frank's drink are shoved into his mouth, and the glass fidgets in his fingers once vacant of a beverage. "Your loss."

"Not really," I negate. "Pete's still rotting, so I'd rather not have two of us dead."

A sigh unwinds from Frank's esophagus, troubled and frustrated. "You need to stop worrying so much about him."

"Excuse me?" I clear up.

Frank slackens a bit, illustrating his perception of the case. "Yeah, I don't want to have to arrange his funeral, but I don't want to do the same for you when you die of stress from managing Pete's emotions instead of your own."

Panic sunders my stomach, fabricating shredded scraps of phobia that act as another force who won't leave me alone. "But—"

Frank's hands position themselves to soothe my consternation. "Patrick, it's all right to take care of other people, but you have to take care of yourself first and foremost."

My body shivers under my clothing, uncomfortable in this anecdote of pressure. "What if I don't need to?"

Exasperation flosses my friend's hazel eyes as he grapples with aiding me. "You said you didn't want two of you dead, so don't let that happen."

I face away from Frank — lying's easier that way. "You seem so confident that it will."

"With your rebellion, it's probable."

Now that Etep has been banished from the kingdom of my brain, I take it upon myself to procure alarms when accosted by tyrannical people such as Frank Iero, and dodging him is part of the procedure. If he won't believe my side, then why bother with him? I know what I'm doing; I've survived that way, and even if barely, it's enough, because at least my life isn't completely riddled with Dr. Saporta's bullet holes.

"I'm tired of people controlling my life!" I shriek, spooking Frank. "I was born to do as I please, but apparently now that I'm all messed up and shit, that gives people the right to treat me like a pet!"

"Patrick, that's not—"

"Don't you dare." My tone is icier than the climate around us, and Frank comprehends that, too, reeling back for fear of my rage, and his fear unexpectedly drives me for more anger.

But it feels strange, like this isn't how I'm meant to react, because it's obvious that I'm wounding Frank, determined by the quivering ocean in his irises, and I've never purposely done that before.

Yet Frank doesn't seem like the person to be timid often, but perhaps it's the unpredicted volume of my lexemes that command such a response from him, though either way Dr. Saporta will not be thankful.

I haven't conversed with him since we traveled to Caribou, to this house with many mysteries hiding in the people who reside here, so he's most likely scared shitless at the thought of his absence and the impact it will have on me.

I've discovered that there actually isn't an impact, because I'm absolutely fantastic, but that may be a false truth with the recent occurrences, but no matter how disoriented I am because of those events, I'm still sitting in the snow with a nervous Frank Iero, and Pete Wentz might as well be dead.

I'm a terrible friend for accepting that, but any real friend would know it's plausible, too. Even an enemy can decode Pete's moodiness as a petition for the grave — it's not like they'll give a fuck, but they'll understand what's happening nonetheless.

Maybe I do aim to leave Frank in the ice and tend to Pete like a helpful companion, but Frank is still as tenacious as he was when I first shouted at him, and I can never suppress the magic of a puppy dog gaze.

So I crumble.

"I'm just saying you don't know what it's like to be reprimanded for things you can't discipline, what it's like to never own your mind to instead cede it to a militant voice, what it's like to hire an amateur of a psychologist who thinks incorrectly that he can solve your problems, what it's like to drown at the sole mention of a person, what it's like to kill yourself and be resurrected for more torture without consent." Tears polish my eyes, amputating any trace of balance, and I prepare for the final punch. "You will never know."

Through this all, Frank is also prepared for his final punch. "And you will never know what it's like to go to rehab, what it's like to be paired with a cellmate that tried to fucking stab you, what it's like to always be monitored by people who only pretend to sympathize with you, what it's like to feel yourself slipping away when approached by the thought of alcohol, what it's like to know your health is declining but not seeing how that could be worse than the facility you've been in for a year, what it's like to never see the daylight in a literal sense, what it's like to escape a metaphor for the harsh reality." Contrary to my speech, no tears occupy Frank's eyes, rather a stone engraved with a soft screw you. "Now you will never know."

And suddenly that beer derives a function in my mind as Frank rises to flee this caustic adventure.

"I'm not drunk, Patrick," he states with his back cackling at me. "Because I've experienced enough of that sensation."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: peroxide is now over 40k words woohoo
> 
> also I didn't intend for frank to be a rehab veteran but here we go
> 
> current vibe: that girl who was rolling her stomach in patrick's Spotlight video
> 
> ~DaKurtCobaina


	24. moisturise the elderly

Dallon's hands are nothing unique, I must say, chiefly because they're defended by those black gloves that anyway fascinate me, but when they're closing in on someone, the relation is claustrophobic in a sense.

I suppose I shouldn't say someone, rather me, because most people don't tarnish at the introduction of limbs to their view, but with me, anybody's contact is a trigger, especially Dallon's, and that's how my ankle managed to invite countless pins to its nerves in an accidental twist and allow me to sit out of an intense game of Duck Duck Goose with Gerard.

It's not so bad, though. At least the elder Way brother has a blanket that he's carefully sheltering against the snow, and at least Dallon isn't selecting me for the goose role, or any role where he'd have to touch me.

So watching Pete Wentz slide through the ice a plentiful amount of times is better for my health than divulging in the action myself, and it's more amusing than flinching with each person the host counts off, praying that it's not me.

It's a smart decision that Gerard made, refraining from joining his peers, and I surmise intuition is what drove him to do so — he's easily surprised.

And all of this seems like a retreat from my attacker, except Gerard has other plans.

"Why don't you like Dallon?" he whispers, leaning over to ensnare the response.

My phrases foxtrot with the air most alien to my friend so that he can't decrypt my deceit, dodging, "What do you mean?"

"You let Frank employ you as the goose, yet when Dallon did it, you freaked out and hurt your ankle."

A shrug weaves into my shoulders. "I guess I was just confounded, is all."

"You're always confounded, Patrick," Gerard shoots down. "What makes Dallon so different from the rest of us?"

My lips dribble into each other, locked by the icicles spinning their cocoons everywhere I look.

Cutting through my silence, Gerard repels the notion of succumbing to my resentment. "Is it because he's new?"

"Frank's new, isn't he?" I deflect.

"Yeah, and you're fond of him, so why are you not so fond of Dallon?" Gerard presses, legs irritatingly jumpy.

"You're fonder of him than I am, Gee." My eyebrows convolute teasingly, a tactic to divert the subject.

"That's not going to work," Gerard negates through fragile chuckling. "Please just answer my question. Why do you hate Dallon?"

Dissatisfied by the failure of my idea, I mutter, "Why does it matter?"

My companion's tone is porcelain in his experimentation of another strategy to persuade me into capitulating, tiny snakes of damage reclining on the otherwise serene surface. "Because I'm your friend, and it's my job to know when you're upset."

"No, you're eighteen, and you already have a job — a real job." A tad of that umbrage vaporizes into the oxygen, but due to the glacial climate, it's forever embedded in Gerard's mind, the impression clear, yet I continue to slander him. "You're practically my dad."

Pique curtails Gerard's eyes, truncating his brows, too. "Patrick, I'm not even a year older than you."

"You might as well be, because you're taken it upon yourself to be one of those overprotective adults, and do you know what kind of feedback they receive from me?"

My friend's cranium swivels back and forth, anticipating my retort.

"They're rewarded with my absolute hatred. Don't be one of them if you value our relationship."

"And if you value our relationship, explain to me your feelings towards Dallon Weekes." Gerard perseveres all the way through the quiet fury, his stare the fortitude of a stone.

"He's arrogant," I mislead.

My friend is now excited, glorifying himself for demolishing the barrier between me and him. "How so?"

Gerard Way must have been living under a fucking rock until now, because he could ask his beloved Frank Iero the same question he asked me, and the boy would provide the my mirrored answer, and Lindsey, who is the most honest out of all of us, would concur with me as well.

"Everyone can identify that Dallon's so fucking pretentious! He's one of those elitists you find in the comments of a video, rambling on about how this generation doesn't appreciate classical music, degrading the pop genre, and even though you couldn't care less about pop, those users are still really fucking annoying."

Gerard's face corrals itself, abashed. "So you're demonizing him because of his taste in music and how he vocalizes his bigotry online?"

Peevishness ripples through me, a sigh strangling my lungs. "No, it's because that's something Dallon would do, and that kind of attitude leads to other actions in the same ballpark."

"You've only known him for two days. How are you already concluding this?"

"And I thought I have a lot of questions," I grouch, Gerard's query ricocheting back into him, all because I avoid addressing topics that demand full-fledged lies, and if I dare to reveal myself to this man, he would get far too involved, but if I misrepresent my case, I'd be required to sustain a guilty conscience until Dallon departs.

Gerard Way has always been very diplomatic, much more than his peers, and I presume that's where my accusation of being a dad originated from, and dads are often very conservative over their children, so if I were to ever disclose that Dallon attacked me, a lawsuit would be the first thing on his mind.

Gerard knows I was assaulted — he handled it very professionally, unlike Ryan, who cried for an hour and flung his arms around me (much to my discomfort) while begging for my assailant to decompose in an obscure ditch on the coast of South Africa — but no one knows who carried it out.

It's safer that way, contrary to Dr. Saporta's whims, but he never helped me anyway, so trust is beyond the point, and relying on myself is the best I can do for my situation.

But then come the investigations of my friends who assure themselves they're concerned enough with my affairs to seek out the closure they arguably don't deserve, and it's completely ironic how they pursue this without consent, when the absence of consent is the factor that screamed assault in the face of my previously idle PTSD.

Perhaps sharing the name of my attacker would be productive in battling the shit brain whom I am ordered to call my own, but Dr. Saporta would just gloat, and Pete would be ashamed that he didn't behave judiciously towards my case, and my other friends would be as silent as I usually am, and they would then begin to pity me — so no thanks.

I'd prefer wallowing in my own sorrow, because others wouldn't be there with me, and I am cognizant that I detest being wholly isolated without a pinch of escape, but dividing a grave for all my friends is more than opprobrious.

So in an endeavor to preserve my acquaintances' devotion to life, my focus dilates onto Gerard.

"Questions are helpful," my host counters.

A sarcastic laugh expels a breeze from my trachea, dubious about Gerard's ambition. "Try telling Dr. Saporta that."

"Your psychologist is shit, by the way, if he's injecting you with these hectic emotions," Gerard extrapolates, grievance castrating his stoicism.

A smile nips the cliffs of my eyes, captivated by just how absurd all of this is. "You think I didn't comprehend that?"

Gerard appears astonished at the jubilance of that sentence, considering I fucking yelled at him a minute ago, but that astonishment soon thaws into a latent grin narrated by the peaks of his handsomely feline lips.

He, however, cooks a speedy recovery.

"It's beautiful seeing you smile," he compliments, nostalgia cornered in his chestnut irises.

A lilypad of merlot ornaments my regularly anemic visage, and my words are but stuttering heaps of denial. "No, it's-it's...no."

"I agree with him, you know," Pete interrupts my pandemonium, pausing his activity of Duck Duck Goose to deliver the message.

And abruptly, the vampire I with whom I was familiar is now drenched in the striking complexion of blood, returning from a feast of admiration that wasn't at all expected.

My friend tumbles into the bench, body blending with mine in a mix of love and longing, and an amorous expression pecks a fire onto the entirety of his composure, reminiscent of the confidence I first met when I greeted him in the coffee shop.

Now that this shitstorm has been circulating the Ways' house and its inhabitants, simple gestures such as these are hard to come by, and for the first time since I was born, Newark doesn't seem so bad. If Pete Wentz is there, life isn't like I'm drifting around hell.

But that was the Pete Wentz before breakdowns, before neglecting himself, before our relationship faltered so drastically, and that's the memory I want back, but it's so distant that I'm not certain it's attainable anymore.

It's able to be tried, though, and it all starts with a few words.

"It's beautiful when you smile, Pete," I recite, plucking a rope of ebony hair from my companion's forehead, and his beam spans more terrain than before.

Maybe the other man won't notice, but Gerard Way unfortunately has an incredible gaydar — and a now cocky smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: this chapter was weird idk but we got more of gerard so
> 
> true fact: ryan ross and jon walker were thrown into a hole in cape town and they're writing songs for the young veins down there
> 
> current vibe: when I got in trouble for watching "every snowflake's different" in history class
> 
> ~Dakowtowa


	25. stay in your fucking lane

The earnest crackling of a fire would be a welcomed respite from the massacre of heat occurring outside, but that's not the crackling that erupts from my phone as it's guarded in secrecy so that my friends won't truly understand the extent at which my brain was chewed up and spat out for dead.

So Pete will have to move on without an introduction to Dr. Gabe Saporta, because in all honesty, that's the luckier end of the deal, primarily now that he's tossing my problems in his mind and discovering solutions that would only succeed for his kind of folk, or anyway far from me.

This has all become very boring, ponderous subjects spewed out to perpetuate his doctorate without any substance at all, but Dr. Saporta, being the ostentatious fool that he is, has no idea that what he's doing is unnecessary and grey.

But as they preach, the pride comes before the fall, and after all he's done, I'd rather he fall quite hard, but until he finishes this meeting with me over the telephone, he's never tipping off the building to his fate.

"You know the drill, Patrick," Saporta hums, and I swear there's a leering field of triumph fertilizing his aging face.

"Not this again," I sigh, my hand absently swerving through my peroxide-stained vines of keratin that I've never really taken care of.

"For old times' sake."

"I'm not doing the drill with you, okay?" My timbre is phlegmatic, sculpting venom into the phone line. "I have other issues."

"You always do, don't you?"

A psychologist isn't supposed to be so acidic, principally when referring to his patient that he promises to bolster throughout their time together, but I'm frankly unconvinced that Dr. Saporta even has a degree in psychology, so any argument towards him is automatically invalid, and if he does, in fact, own that esoteric degree, it doesn't show by the way he continuously heckles me.

"Anyway, what's your current problem?"

I debate hanging up, just forgetting about this blight of a man, but my mother would dry up my phone bill by calling me about abandoning the psychologist towards whom she's so well-disposed, and quarreling with her does nothing for my vantage, so I decide against it.

That hassle materializes in the form of my taciturnity, but once it's resolved, my answer spouts from the mouth on which it previously slept. "Pete Wentz."

A bout of cachinnation bursts the speaker, also bursting my stomach with spite, and Dr. Saporta stammers, "A few days ago, you were telling me he was the best thing since sliced bread."

"Yeah, he is, and that's why it's all the more painful when he dies from not medicating himself."

Saporta's deliberation transfers from between him to the receiver, an odd disappointment recoiling in his silence. "You always pick the ones with flaws, Patrick."

This man is utterly obnoxious. As if I can choose who waltzes into my life with the most peculiar entrance I've seen yet, and it just keeps getting better — better, that is, until they ruin my life even more so than it was, and then I adapt myself for more.

Brows wadding, a single sentence lashes out at Dr. Saporta, with cyanide dripping from the end. "Is that my fault?"

A groan is filtered through the radio, unfavorably provoked by my resistance. "Perhaps you should review your choice in friends before indulging in the sanity they grant you."

"So it _is_ my fault."

Fragments of blackout cloud his response-time, eventually punctured by a spear of consciousness. "I'm not saying that."

"You're almost as cryptic as I am," I judge, a sardonic blade shaping my reasoning.

"All you do is get people off-track," Dr. Saporta recalls. "We were talking about Pete, so let's go back to that."

"All right," I permit with a mouse feeding my inflection.

"Sometimes I wonder if you do this intentionally," the man drones on without a needed goal; I'm already listening.

"Sometimes I wonder if I would be better in **—"**

"Patrick?" the mellow intonation of Pete Wentz calls, hand holstered in the air by the door as his knocking warrants the aperture's splitting.

My fingers grope the phone, endeavoring to shield it from Pete, who would unquestionably interrogate me about why I have my psychologist on speed dial and why I've utilized that advantage to separate my dilemmas with a person who never offers genuine advice but purports to do so anyway, but his eyes expatiate not on me, but the device.

"Who's this?" Dr. Saporta inquires from behind the phone, his voice a mumble due to the position of the cell.

"Um, yeah, Pete?" I respond, ignoring my raw psychologist.

"What are you doing?" Pete's shoes soar along the wooden tundra of the ground, entering the room on the quest to intrude more so than he already is.

Panic hunts my demeanor, looting my pores for a credible alibi as to why I'm hovering over my phone with the utmost precaution, and just as it's about to give up, a treasure springs from its fingertips. "Just talking to someone."

Pete roosts into the wicker furniture near the window, his visage as neutral as it comes. "By 'someone', do you mean your psychologist?"

My teeth infest the inferior lip that circumscribes them, releasing it to allow me to say, "Would it be disappointing if it were?"

Conglomerate emotions stitch Pete's face together, some joyful, some puzzled, some still oblique. "I won't condemn you for badgering help."

"Then should I return to my call?" My accent ties a lethargic resonance around the room, a bit sardonic from the spice of my personality.

"Of course." Pete sutures his extremities together, chaperoning a dexterous stance residing even in the locale of his feet on the table, and he adds, "Put it on speaker."

Without a dash of haste, my pinkie extends to shift the setting from insular to social, and the anxious shouting of Dr. Saporta trying to capture my attention caresses the walls with a bitter touch.

"I hypothesize this is Pete, correct?"

Now that he's been faced with a new person, Saporta's all of the sudden deploying his best words to impress my friend, who will never like him if I don't, so his pompousness is in vain.

"Yeah," I draw out, and a conflicted expression washes over Pete, astonished that I've told my doctor about him, proud for the same reason.

"You know he isn't healthy for you." A part of Dr. Saporta is probably ignorant of the fact that Pete can hear him, but even if he is, informing me of this is a deed done no matter who's around.

My eyes wire with anger, though my psychologist can't detect it. "And do you think I care in the slightest?"

"No, just thought it would be effective if you heard it again."

A pause.

"You should ask Pete why he's not—"

My hands pound the device, hanging up before Dr. Saporta can complete his phrase, which would ultimately result in Pete scolding me for telling my philandering doctor about his affairs with medication, but with all the commotion, my friend is still interested.

"What was that all about?" The voice, however, is not Pete's, but Dallon's, streaming from his poised figure in the doorframe with absolute grandiosity.

My phone fleetly snares in my pocket so that it won't await any further trial at the hands of Dallon Weekes. "What are you doing here?"

"And what are you doing with a bloody psychologist?" he chuckles, unhitching himself from the threshold to greet the slightly different aroma of this new room.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Pete growls, elevating from his chair and approaching Dallon with a sneer splicing the entirety of his features.

"Woah, we got a badass over here." Dallon's gloves float in the oxygen as if under arrest, and with the current state of things, that arrest is foreseeable.

My friend's finger lifts with the idea of accusing the other, more stilted man, and his speech follows suit. "If you think for one moment that hiring a psychologist is—"

"Pete, stop." My command juts into both people standing before me like a knife soaked in the grasp of the hemlock plant, and their puckers are sprinkled with a patronizing disillusion.

"Patrick, are you serious?" Pete's brows are even more wreathed in a junction than mine were while calling Dr. Saporta, and his expression begs for clarification. "Dallon's being a fucking cunt."

"Yes, I'm serious."

Pete's mahogany oculi carve my own grave within my soul, but after a few seconds, he subsides for another location and leaves the air to form around Dallon and me.

Meditation shimmers in the sapphires mounted between my attacker's lashes, and his characteristics enunciate a smug language. "Your buddy is a bit too combative for my liking."

My jacket flutters onto the couch as its owner is met with a disturbed roar. "I don't give a shit what you like, okay?"

"Thought you would, 'cause you're still here." When I don't react, Dallon's ambition to aggravate me more grows to a formidable size. "But then again, you go to a psychologist because you can't do anything on your own."

That evokes the perfect feedback for Dallon's standards, for while I'm pinning him against the wall, all that lights the space is vanity.

"You know, the last time you held me like this, you ended up kissing me."

My clasp on his shoulders restricts him an ounce per second, nourished by my innate hatred for the man. "Shut the fuck up, you peasant."

He bastes his bubblegum lips, cooing, "Aww, your psychologist has taught you well."

"I don't even care anymore if you don't like my psychologist, because I hate him, too." My breathing is heavy with hysterics, inflamed by the malice I retain for Dallon Weekes. "And do you know why that is?"

Nothing.

I push him farther against the wall, sealing the gap between him and the structure. "Do you know why that is?" I demand, my motive being to at least die with an answer.

Dallon finally backfires with a mischievous shrug, tempting me to slap him, but I'm already hoarding the upper-hand in this view.

"Because you were the one who practically engaged him." My mouth wrenches into a labyrinth, lukewarm and passionless. " _Cause and effect_."

"How can that be so?" Dallon denies, portraying the victim when he isn't the one who visits a psychologist often without compliance. "I'm but your jaded friend from years past in Newark."

"I was already sick, and I concluded that it was better to leave you because of that." Tears flick the knots of my eyes, and the sensation trails to my melody. "But you couldn't process that, so whatever ill-will you possess towards me, just know that it's your fault."

Dallon winces, ambivalent about my statement. "Are you sure about that?"

"Of course I'm sure!" When I thought there wasn't any more room to push my attacker, I was wrong, and a loud echo ruptures the wood behind him.

A frightful shuffle clobbers the door, and the fearing forms of Lindsey and Gerard bustle through, a nightmare alive in their step.

"Patrick, what are you doing?" Lindsey wails, a strip of currant missing from her lip from the worrying she's done throughout the day.

Once again, I neglect my friends for the glamor of asperity, a storm tremoring inside me. "You did this, Dallon!"

"Patrick!" Lindsey repeats, forcibly detaining me in her vigorous embrace as an array of phenomena navigate Dallon's skin, and despite some of them being harmless, a single piece of insolence would command a punch, were it not for my location inside Lindsey's hold.

Gerard is flustered, specks of sangria merging with his complexion until he's the epidermis of a glass of wine and just as sophisticated, but in this moment, that last detail is irrelevant, for his body jumps from topic to topic, scouring his mind for an elucidation and returning empty.

It's as if Gerard had no idea I would ever spark trouble, as if I don't exercise psychology to conduct my emotions, as if I'm only a neurotypical to him, even through knowledge of my condition, and perhaps worst of all, the logic may be that Dallon Weekes is his companion.

And that nauseates me.

"Let go!" I cry, wriggling inside my bonds with no prevail, and part of me feels culpable for my actions, but it needs to be known that my attacker is an evil man, that any thought of hanging out with him should be revised.

"I'm not doing that," Lindsey renounces, a definite grit bending into her. "You need to tell me what's going on."

Then those sapphire eyes twinkle, his conceited stance replenished, and a single lexeme cracks it all. "Agreed."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: LITERALLY EVERYONE IN THIS CHAPTER NEEDS TO STAY IN THEIR FUCKING LANE
> 
> THE TITLE IS MORE RELEVANT THAN I HAD ONCE THOUGHT
> 
> current vibe: when I sat in my room for five hours, just eating watermelon
> 
> ~Dakootnoot


	26. I actually love grammar

“Explain.” Lindsey’s gaze is as contriving as I’ve seen it, unsuitable for the generally cheerful crunching around her eyes, and it elicits a fluctuating kind of terror within both Dallon and me, broadcasted by our reserved posture inside our parallel chairs as we confront the now conciliatory Ms. Ballato.

“There isn’t anything to explain.” My legs are becoming nomadic, willing my attention to follow it on its journey around the room, and to any person who doesn’t know me, it would seem as though I’m lying — and truthfully, I am.

“Hush,” she settles, pinning my mouth shut with a simple sound (it’s not like I dare to cross her). “Dallon, what is your bearing?”

Charged by the sudden limelight beating down on him, he omits my anxiety for a priggish grin. “Well…”

“Don’t ask him!” I interrupt, like a child hell-bent on getting their way. “He’ll warp the story until it favors him!”

“Who’s to say you won’t do the same?” Lindsey attunes her brow higher on her forehead through the iniquitous silence, prosecuting me for a trained lie that I could never develop without partial verity.

“I don’t tell lies.”

An incredulous laugh flowers in Dallon’s throat, but Lindsey gags him with a poised finger, beseeching me to continue.

“Will I be obliged to take you into different rooms for interrogation, or are you going to be cooperative?”

That threat extinguishes our squabbling, and the woman’s mouth grips in endurance.

“Let’s start with questions, shall we?”

Dallon and I nod sluggishly, resuming our fight within our peripheral vision so that Lindsey won’t come over here and slap us for being so immature.

Put off by her own finesse, Lindsey leans forward onto her knees to obtain a more affable composure. “What launched the schism?”

My attacker exchanges a peculiar look with me, unsure of who will commence the answering process.

“Apparently having a psychologist is something to be ashamed of, according to Dallon,” I dictate, stare hollowing out Lindsey’s caliber as a distraction so that I can’t view an objection from the assailant reclining beside me.

“Never said that,” Dallon contradicts, burrowing his feet into the coffee table that’s dismembering us from the currently cold-hearted woman. “Just didn’t think you’d be the type.”

“You’ve only known each other for a few days,” Lindsey protests, bewilderment misting in her chocolate irises, the exact style as Gerard had when he said the same thing. “How do you determine if he’s the ‘type’?”

Musing percolates Dallon’s flesh, an impish gleam mooring his lips upward. “Interesting, isn’t it?”

“Hmm?” Lindsey’s now even more miffed than she was, and it seems as though Dallon takes pride in her confusion.

“Interesting how I know so much.” My attacker’s direction aims to earn my recognition, a dart of hostility, only visible to me, nicking my casing.

“Anyway…” Lindsey’s vision crosses between Dallon and me, examining the connection. “How did you interpret his remark, Patrick?”

“It was obvious that he was maligning me.” I glance over to see a bemused Dallon, shaking his head towards his lap so it appears an internal monologue.

Lindsey is skeptical, depicting an alternate impression. “Was it?”

My hands soar through the air, exclaiming, “He’s doing it right now!”

“Yet I wouldn’t call for a fight, now would I?”

Dallon’s brows tango, grateful for someone on his team, and that’s the only action in the quieted room, the rest of the void being my guilt for opposing Lindsey’s superior verdict.

“I thought you were neutral, your only goal to adjudicate,” I demur, surveying my friend. “I suppose that’s not valid anymore.”

A sigh cuddles into Lindsey’s esophagus, distressingly vivid. “Patrick, I’m trying to be as fair as possible, but you must understand that not everything is inclined towards you.”

“No, of course not,” I mutter, and even through my anger Dallon’s face dips with empathy, degenerate to his normal behavior, and the nostalgia glows with the most fervor yet.

He used to be so compassionate, always looking out for me amidst a crowd of hawks that reside only in my brain, cooking meals when I wasn’t capable of doing so, authentically harried by the prospect of my fate, what was to become of me, and perhaps that man isn’t so far away.

But even so, Dallon Weekes is not entitled to my pity, and it’s the snobbish sheen that characterizes him that proves it’s his choice to be such a cunt, and I shouldn’t be enchanted by him, yet when those sapphire eyes imprison me within his authority, discipline isn’t beneficial to my motives, and the reigns I once clutched so tightly now slip from between my fingers like smoke.

And it’s an antagonistic thing, because Dallon James Weekes devastated my life, and here I am, mulling over why he is, in fact, a good person, but it should be a lie. I should be brushing his idiosyncrasies away without a thought. I should be cursing his name instead of shivering at its sound. I should be breaking eye contact with him after a curt scoff, but I’m not, and I’m fucking horrified at myself for being so naive.

Because I’ve acknowledged that his personality will forever clash with my reputation for him, but everything has become bland, and that infirmity doesn’t mean as much as it used to, so if it’s my duty to abhor Dallon, only a minor clamor still exists, and I will defend myself.

“Of course not everything is inclined towards me, but some things are, and you should be one of them, because I am not at fault.”

“Your reasoning is fallacy,” Lindsey traverses rather bluntly, blinking here and there to hammer through the ice.

“Do you want facts then?” I lament, conniption paining my voice. “Because there aren’t facts in emotions!”

I know that Lindsey’s attempting to be courteous, but indignation curbs her rationale, a burdened brook of air tripping from her lungs. “I realize that, Patrick, but—”

Tears block my ability to allow my friend to finish her sentence, advocating my own tragedy. “I can’t tell you what Dallon did to me, but you, of all people, should comprehend that if I maintain a convicting astuteness towards someone and display it outwardly, it’s not some petty case of paranoia.”

Lindsey’s hands fructify in the surrounding oxygen, cataloging the situation’s structure through my antipathy. “I never said your paranoia is petty, and if you haven’t noticed, I’m playing a nonpartisan figure, so not everything is about you.”

Dallon’s sapphire oculi germinate in a stupor, gladly appalled at Lindsey’s vindictive line thrust at me without a proper warning, and just when I suspected that his soul was transferring to morality, he does stuff like this, mocking and stone-like.

“He’s merely irked by my conduct, aren’t you?” Dallon fathoms, and a slow nod governs my body.

Why the hell would my attacker do this? This is an argument between me and him, so shouldn’t he be supporting himself, even if it’s biased?

No, because Dallon Weekes is a capricious asshole who can’t be trusted, and any time you think you have him figured out, he strikes back with the polar opposite calamity, and you’re off-kilter once again until the course repeats.

I can’t blame Lindsey for needing to anatomize this circumstance.

“Yeah, I’m just irked,” I agree, striving for a reason as to why I’m forthwith dreamy.

“Then is that all?” A contented smile fulminates a visage made ghostly in contrast to Lindsey’s popping matte shade, and she excitedly awaits the answer after a long while of prying.

Dallon responds without my input, recompensing the smile and saying, “It should be.”

“That’s fantastic!” my friend blurts, annihilating the folds of her skirt.

“Totally dandy,” I grouch while I explore the terrain of my nail to obviate their scrutiny.

“I’ll be leaving then,” Lindsey announces, cheekbones perched decisively on her skin as she beams at her work.

“Great, yeah,” Dallon greets and is flung back into reality from a temporal blank lasting only a second in my general direction. “Have a good time.”

“Just...try not to pester each other any more.” Her brows crumble with a melancholic sincerity, and remorse dampens her gait as she exits the room, abandoning us for silence.

Almost immediately, Dallon captures my tenacity with a fierce leer crumpling his garnet mouth, and in a reciprocation of my prior advance, he pegs my shoulders deep into my chair. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

A train of phlegm inches down my throat at a weak command, burning with my own anxiety. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Dallon’s stinging words sear his lips, each syllable toting half a ton of lead through agonized screams whose whereabouts I cannot pinpoint.

“Don’t stand up for myself?” Suspiciousness is strung from each point of my voice, enraging my attacker, though only within his soot-tinted heart that he never extended to me, and the victory is beautifully sweet.

Dallon narrows in on me, his breath a concoction of cigarettes and decay, and a whisper delivers a greater blow than a punch. “Don’t cry wolf.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: everyone in this chapter is pissing me off idk
> 
> current vibe: when I was uploading this to AO3 and realised rich text would've put in my italics
> 
> ~Dalloota


	27. square up motherfucker

The ocean on the wall has cultivated a life of its own, if only inside the ridges of paint and canvas above the headboard, and it now dances before me, curling its waves to ride the sky with a pleasant giggle as it subconsciously snubs me for being so trapped in a world where I could easily step away, but it’s just an ocean, and it doesn’t know anything about me.

And yet, through its haughtiness, the water offers a location in which I could drown, and that concept has become intriguing to me, omnipresent in an already suffocating mind, and aloofness is irrelevant in death.

Perhaps it’s a hallucination how the waves veer into each other — such wonders are typical for me, and treating them with a psychologist is partially why I wish to drown — but it’s mesmerizing nonetheless, so hypnotizing that I can feel the liquid painting my lungs already, erecting a tower of water within the organ so essential to life, and I’m already on my way to the grave.

The sensation is nectarous once you shun the fact that my funeral will continue to be planned frivolously, but it’s not like it’s significant once I’m dead, so I beckon the water into my body until it will conquer my soul and glue my lashes shut, and even if I’m still animate, I won’t protest, because it will all be over soon anyway.

The existence of Pete Wentz obstructs any further thought of decomposition, and it seems as though I should be hiding something from him physically, but the only thing around me is the water in my lungs, and that’s a gratifying being...yet it should be protected still.

“Are you all right after...you know?” Pete’s whiskey eyes have lost their bite, enameled by an untraceable gloom that pursues his weary feet as he enters with a close latch on the door.

“Um, yeah, I’m fine.” My words are spiders in delicacy, fusing a web of betrayal, but Pete is apprehensive.

“That’s great and all, but” — my friend descends onto the edge of the mattress, a pensive incision whittling his movement — “that’s one of the most common human lies.”

My tone slopes into disappointment, deadpanning, “So when it’s candid, it’s never believed.”

“Well it’s rarely candid, so it shouldn’t be a problem.” Pete’s head angles in discouragement, dooming me to a fate of a gnarled stomach.

“Is this not a rarity?”

“This is evasion.” My companion’s voice is like rock, beaten away towards disintegration and the chastisement of my perspective.

“I would’ve thought you’d noticed me evading you since the day we met.”

Brows careening, Pete challenges me. “Who’s to say I didn’t?”

“Please,” I counter, a laugh being coughed up. “Anyone who is cognizant that I’m a freak doesn’t stick around for the aftermath.”

“You hated when Spencer and Jon called me a freak.” Pete zooms in on my lips, weathered by the teeth around it, and such can be predicted by confiding in those you shouldn’t. “Why do you do it to yourself?”

“Because they were liars, but I’m not.”

“You say that all the time, but everyone is a liar, Patrick.” Pete entangles his hands in mine, a lachrymose elocution showering his vocal chords. “Everyone.”

“No, that’s impossible.” I snatch my hands away, frightened by the idea of my theoretical amorality. “ _I_ am not a liar.”

“But you’re lying right now.” A quizzical expression chars my friend’s face. “It’s a paradox, you see.”

Discomfort scars my countenance, a shift to my shoulders chasing it. “Then fuck paradoxes, okay?”

A chuckle cuts the tension with incomparable precision, a sort of clemency. “That’s not exactly how things operate.”

“If it’s not, then it isn’t imperative.”

Pete quiets me, kissing my lips with his finger. “And that’s not a proactive mindset.”

“Who cares about proactive mindsets when you have a lovely painting of an ocean guarding you at night?” Gesturing to the picture, a cogent grin carbonates my mouth, and Pete is a tad relenting.

“Patrick, don’t sidetrack me,” he prescribes, nibbling the tip of my button nose. “Even if you’re adorable.”

My arms coast around Pete’s neck, entertaining the strawberry fields nearer to me. “Am I really, though? Adorable, that is. I don’t think I am.”

“We’ve already established that you’re a liar, so how can that be a fact?” I realize my friend’s intentions are to soothe, but being labeled as a liar isn’t so soothing.

“Pete, please stop,” I implore, a warped sob marring my prudence.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” the man apologizes, igniting vampiric skin with terse contact to my forehead. “But you have to remember that life is shit, that there will always be liars, and you may be one of them.”

Proposing partial truths has occupied my time, because official lies are absolutely obscene and undeniably dirty, an unfortunate concept in my brain, but it’s apparent that Pete comprehends none of this, and he’s making a joke out of it all.

A portion of me desires to hate him for it, but we just emerged from a crisis, so an abhorrence such as that would be more than indecent. Rather, I should love him for staying with me through my fluctuating emotions, but our relationship has been feeling like falsified air lately, and we’re both addicted to oxygen masks that supply us with the drugs we never dispute.

So I breathe in the strawberry fields as a consolation, as an amnesty from those masks, bundled in the hospitality of my companion’s chest as I speak and notice the vibrations played entirely by me. “That may be so, but I’m trying to be honest with people now.”

Pete’s head bends around to observe my emerald irises, entranced by my acute conclusion. “When did you ponder that?”

“Recently, in fact.” I delve into the man’s neck, seeking comfort in the activity. “I’m sure Dr. Saporta would be proud of me.”

“Don’t listen to that fool, Patrick,” Pete advises. “He’s no good for you.”

I shrug into him, ambivalent about the situation, because on one front, I need a hell of a lot of help, but on the other front, Dr. Saporta is not the man to administer it. “He’s the one with the PhD, contrarily.”

“Which you know is fake.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I stir inside Pete’s arms, reveling in the static silence until Pete bleeds on the shards he forms while cracking it.

His voice is a husky bruise, tears fortifying it without a professional command. “Do you know how much you mean to me?”

My fingers blacken my lover’s complexion, a plague of sorrow eroding his body, and all I can do is utter his name. “Pete—”

“It’s ghastly how you get worked up over trifling events, because you’re basically tearing yourself apart like that.” Tears gleam on the ebony slate of Pete’s visage, opposite factors mingling with each other to form a variegated champagne.

My extremities elongate to absorb the substance diving from my best friend’s eyes, so strange and iridescent upon my flesh that it’s an itch to keep it any longer, so I cast it away to be rid of the depression it represents.

“You’re not okay, Patrick,” Pete murmurs, smudging me with the falling liquid. “You _know_ you’re not.”

I pattern a cup around his chin, imbibing those penny eyes. “Pete, I’m trying for _you_.”

And then caramel merges with pine, tethered together by parted lips dropping crumbs of faith from tongues too spellbound to speak, and my focus is chained to my lover’s taffy mouth, scrubbed in a divine beauty that no one can replicate, and abruptly the taffy sighs into my own rosewood, bound by the passion of our impending troubles.

It’s a fixture in which the hues glide across each other, soot spread across our padlocked lashes as they step on their counterpart’s skin with a dainty coyness, and the sense is a remarkable kind of cure, healing sutures to scars, but it’s nevertheless necessary to regrow the wilting flower that is our relationship, but instantly when the door opens does our flower cry out in agony and implode on its rotting figure.

Dallon Weekes — the one who demolished any friendship I sustained among the people in this house, the one who’s now angry at the repercussions he brought about.

“Pete, would you come with me?” My attacker’s jaw suppresses any exploding rage, though barely — his veneer is smoldering into an earnest wound.

Pete’s vision passes between me and Dallon, confused. “Why?”

The man glares at me, damning my inscrutable existence. “I don’t want your boy toy to get too heated by what I have to say.”

Pete flips him off, but I lower his hand for a route of negotiation. “Just go. I’ll be okay.”

Dallon’s limbs gnaw on his hips, a chortle rasping his throat. “Has it gotten to the point where you need consent to talk to someone?”

“It’s not like you’d understand,” I riposte. “Consent was never your thing.”

And before I can scandalize Dallon any further, Pete is tugged out the door, and the ocean drowns me again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: oh my damn that was a fluffy chapter
> 
> current vibe: when my friends and I had a whole conversation on whale sex
> 
> ~Danootnoot


	28. smells like teen angst jk nirvana's dead

A forthright temper saturates Dallon’s shoes as they’re struck by the cackling wind on his course outside, and not even the frigid temperatures can sway him from vilifying the man strapped tightly in his clutch, the one he’s come to despise without a lawful deduction.

And he’s back outside in the cold, the place where his smoke rose into the air in a creek of chemicals the last time he was there, and the memories aren’t as convenient to him as they were, considering Pete is making a show out of his old friend, yet Dallon continues to assure himself that he doesn’t care about the kid, but like Patrick, he hates to lie.

But lying is all he’s been doing up here in Caribou, where it seems as though lying is coincidentally the least of one’s concerns by virtue of the other activities swarming its residents, and now his beloved Patrick Stump finds him to be an arrogant cunt, which is beyond his ambitions. He wouldn’t have confronted Patrick at the bar if he knew it would turn out this way, but they haven’t spoken in two years, and attitudes can be altered in that time.

It appears that Patrick’s attitude has been tailored against the man, for he barely can so much as glance at his so-called “attacker” without fragments of spite splotching his tongue as he speaks an inimical tale meant to punish him.

Still, Pete is open, and Patrick is ostensibly comfortable enough with the boy for it to be clear that Dallon’s identity has not been disclosed, so why not give it a shot with Mr. Wentz?

“Dallon, what the hell are you doing?” Pete whines as he’s pulled from the interior of the house with a forced tact.

Dallon’s focus is sold to the pillow of ground in front of him, bones pressured in an override of his actual emotions towards the subject. “We need to talk.”

Pete struggles to keep up, feet gamboling in the snow as his energy is abducted from him, making it particularly difficult to say even a simple word. “About?”

Dallon wheels around, still perpetuating his rough clamp on Pete’s collar. “About you and Patrick.”

“Why does that bother you?” The younger man’s brows grab each other, half unnerved and half flummoxed.

“When did I say it bothers me?”

“You wouldn’t be taking me outside privately if it didn’t.” Pete’s argument censors his partner, and their dander is distilled in the ivory blanket accentuated by the shades of the moon.

“I suppose not.” Dallon’s voice is frail, as tenacious as he’s heard Patrick’s, and it’s a discordant eruption in his larynx that nettles him so fully, but he can’t see it ever stopping now that it’s commenced.

Pete indents his waist to accommodate his hands, a frank point to his lips. “Just tell me what you have to say, and we’ll be off.”

“I want to tell you that Patrick isn’t the person you think he is.”

“What do you mean?” Pete gapes. “Apart from him being mostly covert, there’s nothing under the layers beyond regular human secrets.”

“Are you so sure about that?” Dallon’s brows undulate on his face, feasted by his counterpart’s chagrin. “The idea of secrets is to keep them hidden.” He shrugs, dismissing the notion in a subtly sarcastic fashion. “Plus, he’s an anxious kid who never unveils anything, so you’re mistaken in whatever you think you understand.”

Pete’s turmoil deliquesces into humor, a sardonic extravaganza furnishing his amaranth lips. “I love how you’re so sure in this.”

“I know Patrick,” Dallon enforces, a dash of sincerity eating away at his crystal veneer.

A serrated “hah” lathers hilarity on Pete’s lungs, and he grants, “Yeah, for two days.”

Dallon, however, is firm. “If that’s what you think.”

Pete nods durably, emphasizing his claim against Dallon’s immovable treachery. “That’s what I know.”

“Well two days is enough,” the elder man declares, abolishing the creases of his jacket for a political stature.

“No, it’s really not.” Frustration boils Pete’s facade, and burns begin to fleck its surface, beauty far from the actuality.

A latent grin blinks onto the primrose crescent of Dallon’s face, proposing a dare. “I love how _you’re_ so sure in this, Pete.”

“I know Patrick,” Pete reinstates, an icier intonation present than when Dallon said the same thing only moments earlier.

“Then you should also know that he’s delusional as hell.”

Pete’s hand sprawls into his hair, clipping a sigh to his lungs simultaneously. “Dallon, I’m not discussing Patrick’s mental health with you.”

“I suppose that’s to be foreseen,” Dallon concurs, penning a masquerade of stress amidst a manipulative aspiration, one buried under an apparent tragedy. “Chatting about horror isn’t what I’d call polite.”

“If you wouldn’t disparage him for something he can’t control, that would be great, especially since he’s not here.”

“Oh, come on,” Dallon cachinnates, cynical about Pete’s balanced insurance on his friend. “Anyone can see that he’s really fucking annoying.”

For the first time, Dallon Weekes is a liar — a genuine fucking liar — and partial truths are all but gone, a sign clapped over them to signal their death, but that’s never been enough for the man, because he keeps waiting by their door for a return that never transpires, and many storms weep into the sky before he finally leaves with his spirit shoved deep into his pockets.

And he washes those jeans immediately after the tears depart, too, so whatever spirit that remained is now gone, and the only thing Dallon knows is that he is fucking in love with Patrick Stump, and that his love will never be requited.

Dallon Weekes is the stupidest man you’ll ever encounter, and he recognizes it, too, because he’s crashed on too many occasions to number, and that itself isn’t shameful, but what he does after lists his weaknesses with a close calculation.

He disguises himself the only way he knows how — through a corrupted ego.

And even when it comes to Patrick Stump, Dallon is _still_ the same pretentious asshole as before, and his old friend has configured a solid hatred around him, but what he says is nothing to be taken seriously. It’s all just a semblance with flashing colors that often point away, and his words are just errata.

Patrick Stump is everything _but_ annoying, but in trusting entire lies, Dallon is caged within his own heresy, so he braves Pete’s judgment with the ashes of his spirit inking his fingers as it defiles him for being so idiotic, and failure is only minimal.

“Patrick is not annoying,” Pete retaliates calmly, stealing the sentence from Dallon with such casualty that he wishes he could possess.

The man of sapphire-blue upbringings wrings his shoulders, complying if only a bit. “Not to you.”

“Not to anyone.” Pete’s eyes never sleep, their sole motive to drill the fact into his partner's bigoted mind.

And damn — it’s so accurate that it hurts, because Patrick is definitely not annoying, but Dallon was in need of a reason as to why Pete should detach himself from the timid boy, though it’s not like Patrick would like Dallon any more than he would the other man, yet Dallon chases the concept nevertheless.

But this isn’t him — not the “him” people think of when they hear his name, anyway — and in the fabricated Dallon’s mind, Patrick is the most annoying person ever, even if he hates that, because he’s made torture out of it since day one.

And it was so traumatizing that it was written as a penny dreadful and rinsed down the sink to communicate plainly that it was never wanted, so _he_ never pushed, but it pushed at _him_ , and the fourth wall is now collapsing.

But he chooses to turn the opposite way and pretend it never happened, through tumbling bricks and dense pollution, and the opposite way happens to be towards Pete Wentz.

“You need to stay away from Patrick,” Dallon urges, his sense of alarm so authentic that it could be jumbled with palpability, were it not for the panicked situation.

“And _you_ need to stop ordering me around,” Pete retrospects.

Dallon’s hands crispen the air in a weak attempt to defend himself, stuttering, “I would hardly say—”

“No, you _are_ ordering me around, Dallon, and you need to get it through your foolish little head that your actions bear consequences.”

The older man’s words lace around each other in a hectic dash, inundated by the sudden speed of the conversation. “Of course I realize that.”

“I don’t think you do.”

Teeth braiding into each other, Dallon’s syllables are choked and irate, yet they’re able to be released like vultures into the wild. “I _do_ , and I’ll make sure you’re aware of that.”

Pete’s fingers reticulate in his onyx mane for the second time in their conversation, a gesture of apprehension. “Honestly, you can do what you want with me, but at least give Patrick a good Christmas, yeah?”

A few seconds bedaub the silence until it’s unembellished by caustic speech, unfitting for this anecdote yet containing the audacity to fall away like leaves. “Fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: oh myy,,,y
> 
> just to be clear, this story in no way endorses sympathy for abusers, and the reason Dallon is so dichotomous is because I'm trying to write an interesting character so yeah
> 
> current vibe: when my friend didn't talk to me for three days after she read the "lmao gotta zayn" chapter
> 
> ~Dakotlotlea


	29. furst i steel ur fuud thann i steel ur hart

I choke the brew cup with the sort of power I wish to acquire ubiquitously, and this slight reprieve from helplessness is magnificent, but this is a coffee shop in the middle of the mall, and it isn’t time for my whimsical thinking, especially when a cheerful Lindsey is visibly bubbling across from me.

“Pete’s just going to love what you got him!” she gushes, greeting the table with the underside of her cup a tad too forcefully, causing the other patrons to swivel their necks and investigate before returning to their pastoral lives that don’t concern us.

My fingers chip away at the plastic lid in front of my petite nose (which Pete has called adorable far too much), and my reply is distant. “Are you sure?”

When Lindsey invited me to the mall, I had no intentions of buying anything, even if Christmas is around the corner, but when a little glass finch caught my attention in the dingiest thrift shop in the entire complex, it was hard to resist...so I didn’t, and now that bird has me feeling queasy about Pete’s reaction to come in a few days.

Nevertheless, it’s in my bag, ready to be cached in widespread commercialism in the form of wrapping paper when we return to the cottage, and my fear will have to wait until Christmas morning.

“Of course I’m sure, Patrick!” Darker thoughts button up Lindsey’s mind suddenly, shaken by my unease. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“I don’t know.” I don’t dare look at Lindsey, instead utilizing my hands to suck cuts into the lid of my cup like I’ve been doing for the past few minutes.

“You’re going to spill your coffee like that,” Lindsey warns, taking note of my nervous excursion.

“Then all the white girls would come to wipe it up,” I jest as Lindsey gyres hickory within their whites, slightly disappointed and slightly amused by my joke.

“I love white people jokes,” she opines, skin jointed in good humor. “You’d probably be the emo cousin.”

Hardly offended, I revenge, “And you’d be the butterscotch grandma.”

The woman shrugs. “I guess that’s fair.”

“I just remembered!” Lindsey yelps, and a few people turn at the commotion. “Ryan and Brendon are coming tomorrow!”

“Maybe they’re finally an item,” I speculate, pondering a topic that shouldn’t be relevant yet somehow is.

“I’m assuming one of them is a flamboyant gay, correct?” My friend infers quite intuitively, flesh pulsating with excitement.

“That would be Brendon,” I chuckle, vision leeching the inspiration from my coffee. “Have you never met them?”

“Nope.” Lindsey reams her apple lips, symbolizing earnestness, and my concrete brows converge.

“I would’ve thought that Gerard introduced you to them at least once.”

“He prefers for me to stay away from his friends,” Lindsey confesses. “It’s probably just a white guy thing, nothing personal.”

“On the topic of white guys, Gerard’s most likely the weed cousin,” I diverge, our white people stereotypes throbbing with overuse. “Brendon’s the gay cousin, and Ryan is the suburban mom.”

“A lot of cousins, huh?” the woman giggles, swabbing her throat with the latte pressed between her carmine nails.

“That doesn’t really matter, because you’re being upstaged by a new mom — Ryan Ross.”

Both of Lindsey’s brows scratch higher on her forehead, astounded by her present status. “I’m a mom now?”

“Admit it — you _know_ you’re a mom.”

My friend sips her coffee secretively, a tad of the sensation probing her switching eyes. “Probably.”

“Well we’ll see who wins the mom battle tomorrow afternoon, now won’t we?” Intrigue pinnacles my lips, drawing a line from ear to ear as Lindsey’s game stace frisks on her body.

“Ryan Ross is going down.”

“We’ll just have to wait to find out.”

And then our lungs burst with comicality, but I’m not really sure why. I suppose we’re just marveling at how absurd all of this is — assigning stereotypes to people, fretting about Christmas gifts, sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of the mall with no goals other than to enjoy ourselves by escaping our continuous labors — and with our circumstances, I can’t ask for more.

“It’s amazing how my first discussion with Ryan is most likely going to be about scheduling our duel,” Lindsey gasps. “He’ll be so bewildered.”

“He probably won’t question it, to be frank,” I assure, marrying the coffee to my taste buds. “He’s generally a docile guy.”

“That’s good, because not even I know what I’m talking about.”

“Is everything all right over here?” a waitress inquires, raven tresses bedewing her wiry shoulders as they support an arm faithfully employed by a notepad.

When Lindsey spots my anxious frame shivering in my seat, she takes over the conversation. “Yep, everything’s great.” The woman squints to read our waitress’ name tag, adding, “Alicia.”

Alicia’s lips cream with a smile, which is soon replaced by fascination at the sight of Lindsey’s eyeliner, spun in a precise wing. “Wow, your makeup is fantastic!” she yawps, closing in on the other girl with unbridled infatuation.

“Um, thanks,” Lindsey acknowledges, glancing jocosely at me.

“Yeah, no problem,” Alicia replies, still fixed on Lindsey’s cosmetics as the manager begins to become suspicious.

“Alicia, get back to work!” her boss yells, waving a rag in the air.

“Fine, Christa!” she calls back, then turning to us and sheepishly placing two candy canes on the table. “Merry Christmas, guys.”

Lindsey’s mouth willows in only a tad fake smile, responding, “You, too, Alicia.”

Once the waitress departs, I fold myself inward and whisper, “She was a bit odd.”

“I’m sure she had good intentions.”

A pause.

“Anyway, shall we get home?” Lindsey proposes, slinging her purse over her limb and tossing out her empty coffee cup.

I collect my trash, remembering my glass bird, and nod my head. “Merry Christmas, Alicia!” I repeat on my way out, and the last thing I see is a toothy grin before we’re cleansed by the winter air.

~~~~~

“Isn’t it spectacular?” Lindsey gulps, gazing admirably at the newly manufactured Christmas tree with a spell torching her gingerbread irises.

“Quite.” I deposit my gift, wrapped in a snowman’s palooza, with the rest of its kind, selected by me with the most ambivalent judgment in a store that holds no meaning to my friends but is the only option for my grieving mind, and I am finally content with how the tree looks.

Homemade ornaments supple the evergreen, ranging from kindergarten crafts to Gerard’s art show masterpieces, and it’s evident that surplus love and care contributed to their forging. Many shapes and sizes sheathe the branches, tendrils of glass reflecting a magnificent kind of mirth, bulbs of different flavors contrasting with the chartreuse of its neighboring needles, gaiety of every proportion dancing in the woodland fragrance mixed with cinnamon and chocolate, and it’s all so...nostalgic.

One ornament in particular stands out from the rest, fairly new and pristine, and as I examine it closely, I find it to be made by the familiar touch of Pete Wentz, and my name drips from its lustered surface onto my lot of presents below.

“Do you like it?” chirps a voice lined with buoyancy, humming into my neck like the crook of a juniper.

I pivot to face the silk prospect of my friend, and a cookie is promptly smothered within my teeth, a newborn from the oven. I remove it briefly to speak, saying, “It’s beautiful.”

“I’m glad you think that.”

Gerard appears behind Lindsey, also locating a delicacy between her teeth as she smacks him away. “Pete and I made cookies,” he informs her while deflecting a hit.

“Regardless, don’t sneak up on me, Gerard Way!”

“Whatever, Lindsey,” the lissome man scoffs in farce.

“Whatever, weed cousin,” she bickers in defense.

“Suburban mom,” Gerard mutters, hands belted to his hips as he analyzes the display of gifts under his masterfully decorated tree.

“Even Gerard knows his white people stereotypes,” I murmur to Pete, now unwittingly bushed by his embrace and clothed in the memories of the fruit rows.

“You smell like a coffee shop.”

_And you, a strawberry field._

“I went with Lindsey to the mall and got a cappuccino while I was there,” I answer absently and burnish a strand of crow to rest flatly on Pete’s head.

“You should’ve gotten a pumpkin spice latte,” my friend cerebrates, his laugh shaving grooves into my spine, and I laugh with him.

“Why?”

“It’s my absolute favorite,” Pete insists, scything a kiss into the tip my nose to distract me from the fact that he indulges in possibly the most mainstream drink ever, but then again, I’m not a hipster and shouldn’t care.

I roll my eyes. “Are you a white girl now?”

“I’ve always been a white girl at heart.” Pete clutches his chest, as if pledging allegiance to the sorority of cliché women.

I tussle his pitch coils, retracting with the ashes of flour cropping my fingers. “Ugh, shut up, you fool.”

“Okay,” Pete complies, but instead of remaining dormant, his lips sinew my own, escorted by an incomparable bravery suave with the aroma of freshly baked cookies, and the room is suddenly encrusted in applause.

“I hate you,” I scowl, amputating our connection once I regain my consciousness.

Pete’s eyes are pliant with mischief, and with the cinders of a taste on his lips, he kisses me one last time and purrs, “I know you do.”

But before I can react, Frank stumbles in from the kitchen, shouting, “Well let’s all have a great Christmas and enjoy some eggnog!”

And I just laugh.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: *throws leaves in the air* fLUFF
> 
> also I'm really excited to write these Christmas scenes
> 
> current vibe: when my dad called me to ask what kind of grapes I wanted
> 
> ~Darude sandstorm


	30. no ragrets

There’s a demon in my stomach that won’t get out, and his motive is to infiltrate my mind as well. He materializes in the static blinds of the window, spectral from a dichotomy that should have never transpired for the foreshadowing of what is to come, and his chant hollows out the eaves of my heart with a necrotic rigor, so I’ve become unsusceptible.

Blackness stills the room and stashes paranoia where it should never go — in the lacustrine valleys of my lungs, where water massacres any trace of oxygen for its own harrowing grace — so all I can do is accept my fate.

A box inaugurates the inveiglement of my interest, and as I approach, I realize that it’s nothing significant, that it can just be pelted at the floor without consequences, so my fingers balter around it and exile the object to the ground.

The fragrance it fashions is a svelte pirouette within the walls, if only to my ears, but to other people it’s a war cry, and they’ll soon be armored for battle.

Without a prior alert, the door tiptoes forward, and the rarely meek form of Dallon slides past. “I heard a noise,” he explains, frame still trussed in the threshold.

“You couldn’t have,” I reject blankly.

“Is that because the door is locked, or is it because you don’t think anyone cares enough to help you?”

“Try and find out.” My brows would usually be baked in sarcasm on any other occasion, but the only thing into which they’re baked is asphalt, so my friend takes up the duty.

Dallon’s mouth is crucified in a smirk, dots of rose clinquant in nails and binding. “I know you well enough — I don’t have to.”

“It’s been two years,” I counter. “A lot can change.”

A sneer razes Dallon’s lips, and a quip is soon dribbled after “Yet you’re still the same stuttering clown.”

“I thought you were here to help.” A cold stare deters the man, and his goals shift abruptly.

“Right.” Discretion epitaphs my attacker’s face, and his attention stems from another area, rather than my unfortunate speech patterns. “Why are you crying?”

“The money question,” I chuckle impassively. “I’m always crying these days.”

Dallon seems genuinely confused. “The old Patrick didn’t do that.”

“The old Patrick is gone.” The martyr of a warning flitches my tone, pounding its feet into the wood scraps with an implacable determination. “A lot can change in two years,” I repeat.

And it’s true, even if Dallon won’t agree to it, because many changes have held on tightly throughout these dreary months, and denying it is making a fool out of yourself. For example, Dallon wears gloves now. I wash my arm in hydrogen peroxide as a compulsion and shudder at the thought of the past. Dallon hasn’t even said my name until now, and it all contributes to the notion that we are not the same as before, not in the slightest, and though I’ve experienced enough stress sprouting from these affairs, I can’t help but wonder if we’re even the same corporeal people at all, if that’s even a guillotine for nostalgia.

But we have to be the same people, at least in a biological perspective that dictates the concept that seven years create a new identity for someone, and from that ideology, some part of me has staggered in the aroma of Dallon’s house, and my memory of it is still partial.

In seven years, I will be someone who has never touched Dallon Weekes, and that phrase kept me going in the time after our relationship was decapitated, and now that he’s back, the count has started again, but seven is irrational when we’ve already been altered so much in two years, so our lives will have changed with the same precision as seven, and at least in mind, I will be whole, and my body will have to follow five years later.

For now, however, I have yet to reach a seven year mark, whether it be from two years prior to this moment, or commencing this week, and I know that my skin remains to be lapidated by cigarette smoke and entombed in formaldehyde, and I know that I can’t truly let go while my cells are pining for the home of Dallon Weekes, even when it’s far gone from me, and the porcelain surface that I have strived so completely to achieve is now just matted against betrayal.

Though too often humans dream of porcelain skin, but they should realize that blood shows up better on such a terrain, and with that phenomenon, suddenly those cracks on my flesh don’t mean as much as they did, because I’ve made it clear to everyone that I’m a screw up, that I’m a failure, that I’m nothing to be concerned with because I’ll end up ruining the people around me in the end, and I’ve always been chipping away in their perception.

I seem so self-aware when I say this, so confident that others hate me, but the thing about receiving hate is that it’s just having your own words extracted from the mouth of another, but with this you have someone to blame, and because of that, people may not hate me as much as I think they do, but then again, my voices will return if I challenge my own bigotry, and that’s a risk I don’t want to take.

Yet I’m internally puking, and Dallon is still with me through it all, though without the knowledge of my malady and only the small hint of it, and he’s nevertheless as quiet as I’ve seen him, orifice raked into a line as he waits for my ruling which blooms soon after.

“We’re nothing like we used to be.” Commonly, tears would be exhumed from my lids, euthanized by a grove of spines called lashes, but in this situation, any recollection of water is but a ghost.

As Dallon’s head lurches downward, bones of sienna locks crane to the floor with a somber tone itching the peaks, and his voice is soft and mellow. “I know.”

“No, you don’t.” My head clears a horizontal path, stalwart in its fidelity and gravelly in its undertones.

“I had to experience it, too.”

“Wrong,” I nullify. “You were off the hook, immune to this hell, while I had to encounter it wholeheartedly.”

Dallon’s neck slants to the side, prepared for a battle. “I’m wearing gloves, aren’t I?”

“And will you tell me why that is?” I snap, enraged by his sardonicism.

My attacker shrugs, quickly indifferent, and he leaves me with a simple vow. “You’ll figure it out.”

Before he exits, however, my hand chews his shoulder and halts him, and my brows sew a curtain around my eyes. “Dallon, why are we like this?”

The man pivots hesitantly. “Like what?” It’s obvious that he knows what I’m talking about, but admitting to it has never been his forte.

“All we do is fight,” I complain, my voice a sparse whisper of the trees in the wind. “We used to have something. Where did that go?”

“Deep into the floorboards,” Dallon reminds me with a cursory nod. “You know what we left there.”

“Our virginity,” I banter, and a chuckle gongs my partner’s lungs.

A smile masticating Dallon’s entire countenance, the pleasure soon fades from the skies of his sapphire gems. “You know, it’s really fucking nice to laugh again.”

“Yeah,” I concur, with the bantam of a mouse crawling from my trachea. “All we do is fight now.”

“And over what?” my old friend derides. “I’m still not sure.”

“I guess we’re terrified of what we used to have, and because it’s not visible right now, we don’t ever adventure to find it.”

“It might still be there.” Hope forms a shivering hemorrhage in Dallon’s eyes, but I tilt away from the temptation.

“Dallon, no…”

“Well I remember things, don’t I?” Dallon begs. “I remember how you bit your first cigarette when you were learning how to die. I remember how you nursed a finch back to health without resting. I remember how you discovered a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in the cabinet and became obsessed with its properties. I remember how you departed without a clear reason and made a monster out of me, and I remember how we were both all alone.

“But you still loved me, didn’t you? That’s _why_ you left, because you didn’t want your psychosis to injure anyone, but your psychosis didn’t take your emotions away. They might have altered them, yeah, but you were set on standing by me until the last moment nevertheless. Is that person gone?”

“No,” I murmur, a storm of courage taking a stiletto to my fear. “He’s in my arm where I left you. He’s in my feet as they wound the floorboards. He’s in my lips from their surface to yours. He’s—”

Just as I had said, Dallon’s lips scrounge the brick of my own, a vendetta docked in a sea of blood as it drowns into nothingness, and the rhythm of the kiss organizes our heartbeats, thudding within the blank space so that our vigor is constant.

It’s like a drug, the kind I use to describe this man, in the way that an addiction is my sail amidst an ocean of treachery, the only one that persuades me into trusting it because my surroundings are too captivating for my own good, and I used to coming back for more in the time that I actually knew Dallon Weekes.

Then rehab came in a metaphorical sense, and that affliction was all just a morning mist that you look at and feel a bit of sadness before you go on, and now that it’s returned, I don’t know what to expect, because I feel myself slipping back into that pattern, back into that addiction, and for some reason, I’m not worried about it.

Drugs make people sick, but I was already sick when this all started, so I tricked myself into believing that I couldn’t get worse — I did.

I’m not ready to visit mental rehab again, so I unravel my lips from Dallon’s, and all so abruptly, the door to the bathroom is gilded in fear, wrapped up thoroughly with a steadfast lock, and any intentions to come out are then thrown into the void.

Contagion besets my throat, hammering lances into the sides so that it may climb higher and purge my stomach of its existence. This plague suddenly makes the trash can look all the more appeasing, the recycled bag within it so limber and ready for my troubles.

I advance towards it, an asphodel of fluid beleaguers the roof of my mouth, and its axis tumbles into the waste bin with its autonomous nativity and its putrid sound.

“Are you all right in there?” Dallon inspects, tapping frantically upon the door as the noise constructs a screen around it.

“I’m fine,” I croak through an obfuscated airway.

A sigh pervades the wood of the door, disappointed in my response. “Stop lying to yourself.”

“I’m not lying,” escapes as a protest, though it’s unfounded and flimsy.

“That’s because you hate it, but ‘I’m fine’ has become so common that it’s not considered a lie anymore,” Dallon dictates, and I hear his torso festooning the structure between us.

He doesn’t know it’s fake when he spawns medicine from a gentle tongue, and the only thing that can solve medicine is a stomachache. On the flip side, the only thing that can solve stomachaches is medicine, but with disproportionate supplies, they chase each other.

But is this even medicine? Is this even a stomachache? Why has common sense become so rare that it’s praised when it enters? Dallon’s just pragmatic, and I’m just an asinine opportunity for him to showcase his basic human functions. Perhaps, though, this is medicine, and perhaps this is a stomachache, and if so, then it’s cross with me.

If I’m acknowledging the probable, I’ve had the medicine, and it’s time for the stomachache, and soon enough I’ll be in need of more medicine — but for now I must take care of my current surroundings, in which the stomachache is nearing, in which Dallon anticipates his victory.

I can’t give him that.

“How many other lies have become neutral?” I retort, tipped by the trash can as I struggle to formulate words.

“Many of the things you say.”

“I don’t feel well.” Digression is by far the best tactic for affairs such as these, and I nod my head in approval while my attacker can’t see it. “Stop pestering me.”

“That’s a lie, too,” Dallon observes, softly rapping on the door with his pointer finger — three times, like he knows I can’t deal with.

Instantaneously, as if it’s become a routine, and in some ways it has, my hands coil around a bottle of peroxide from below the cabinet and unlace the top, and without thinking, the substance is drained onto my skin.

 _Impurity warrants this_ , it howls while subjugating the entire landscape of my arm, and I only agree with its doctrine, because it comes along in the package, and if I need hydrogen peroxide that badly, I’m willing to take it.

Dallon’s knocking becomes more hurried, rushed in a sough of wind and the fright that I may harm myself with a chemical that he doesn’t truly understand, but hydrogen peroxide will never hurt me, and I will never hurt myself with it. It saves my life everyday, and people are a dunce if they think otherwise. It provides a passage from the nightmare Dallon caused, and now he’s anxious about my use of it — idiot.

“What are you doing in there?” Dallon asks, pitching his voice at a loud opera.

“I’m okay.”

The peroxide knows I’m lying.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: this chapter oml i gtg
> 
> current vibe: sixth grade white boys thinking their opinion matters
> 
> ~Dakroota


	31. I've chosen not to acknowledge the things I put at the beginning

“Ryan, there’s someone here with me.”

The phone line stills, bewilderment clouding my friend’s cognition. “Patrick, I don’t know what you mean.”

“No one ever does.” Hysteria caps my voice, mutilating a laugh while it’s at it. “I mean there’s someone in this house that I haven’t seen in two years that shouldn’t be here.”

“Two years…” Ryan’s words crunch with aposiopesis, rebuilding themselves later. “Wasn’t that—”

“Yes, now you need to help me.”

Noises from the other end vary, a few ruffling sonatas, a few creaks of the chair below my companion. “How so?”

My tone commits to a brontide, wholly serious. “If you see a man you don’t know, that’s the one. There are a few new people here, but you’ll know him when you see him.”

“How am I supposed to—”

I kill the line.

~~~~~

“Brendon! Ryan!” Gerard greets, welcoming the two men into his quite lovely home with a grand smile plasticizing his face.

They’re as homosexual as I’ve seen them, hands like satin in each other — natural and smooth — which suggests that they’ve finally admitted their obvious feelings for one another, and though I have been rooting for them since the beginning, something sinister maledicts my stomach and warps any sort of affection for them to bile.

Expeditiously after Ryan steps inside, his vision cycles to a mysterious man reclining on the sofa, and his fascination is piqued — but not favorably. His glances are pendulums swinging my way, and without acknowledging anyone else — such as Lindsey and Frank and Pete, the people he’s never met — he tugs me aside.

“You saw him, did you?” I prompt.

“The tall one with the gloves?” Ryan gestures around his head in a poor imitation of Dallon’s coiffure, and I simply nod.

“That’s the one.”

My friend’s mouth swipes back and forth, disconcerted. “Patrick, I’m glad that you’re finally sharing the details of your attack with me, but why the hell is he still here?”

“Because.”

Ryan sighs, opting for a different engagement. “What’s his name then?”

“Dallon James Weekes.”

“Precise.” His brows cuff to his forehead in sway.

“You tend to know these things when litigating someone.”

“You never filed a lawsuit, though.”

“I prefer practices within the mind.” I tap my skull twice, gesturing like my mother tells me I should. “I usually imagine him in a cell among grimy prisoners.”

“As long as you’re content, I’m fine,” Ryan confirms, grinning proficiently, but thunderclouds roll in soon after. “But you should tell someone about this. Maybe Gerard should know.”

My head strikes to the side, denouncing the proposition. “No way. That’s where I draw the line.”

“You have to take care of yourself,” Ryan prays, creases materializing on his regularly youthful face, which reminds me of the fact that he’s the only one who seems to be authentically involved with my worries and will go to great lengths to solve them, but that’s not what I need now, even if I normally would regard it as a helpful thing.

The moment people start suggesting what I should and shouldn’t do with my life, I have to put my foot down, because I’ve witnessed what it’s like to have someone reign over every aspect of my life and evoke the feeling that I’m being watched, because I am — and, though perhaps accidentally, they have inflicted the obsessions of surveillance in my brain and doomed me to their own OCD diagnosis as a ploy to make me dependent on them.

But I _am_ taking care of myself, contrary to Ryan’s thesis, by warding my soul against the terrors of my obsession’s antagonist, the thing that orders my compulsions to expunge it, but getting my friends trapped inside my crisis with Dallon isn’t taking care of myself, so Ryan would be better off if I didn’t.

“I’m trying to.”

Dubiety blotches Ryan’s mocha eyes, and his words dress in more acerbity than planned for. “No, I don’t think you are.”

“And how would you know?” I flash, teeth smirched in a swift hatred. “There are some people in the world who aren’t good at maintaining themselves, but at least they attempt to do so.”

“Patrick…” Ryan’s sentence ends there, until a derisive expression inspires him. “Why do you always look at me like that?”

“I’m studying you,” I answer, vision still sponging onto him in a narrow streak.

“For?”

Tacit frustration blurs my legibility, but it doesn’t carry towards my tone, a tactic I’ve acquired throughout my exposure to it. “I study everyone, especially their eyes, brows, and composure.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been told I need to improve with facial recognition, but it seems as though I’ve become the master at it because of that advice.”

The man before me cocks his head, asking, “Is this an autism thing?”

“So what if it is?” I vent a bit too obnoxiously.

“Then that’s all right,” Ryan contends, securing himself from my spite, “but is your resistance towards seeking help also an autism thing?” When I don’t respond, he tows me into the nearest room and closes the door, lounging in the chair as I stand in front of him.

My lips blear with furtiveness, and another reply endeavors to settle him. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Oh, come on!” my friend exclaims, hands elevating. “You have full volition over yourself, so why don’t you use it?”

“Because I really _don’t_ have full volition over myself, and you should know that.”

An exhale whistles through Ryan’s lungs, and his hand mows the coffee shades of his hair with a distressing mien. “I’m sorry, Patrick.”

“It’s okay.” My voice is dim and submissive, typical of my partial lies toted through anxiety of telling people how I really feel, and once again, it’s successful.

“No, it’s not okay,” Ryan negates. “I’m a terrible friend to you, when the definition of a friend is someone who assists another person, but I’m not doing that.”

“You’re trying your best,” I allow, somewhat perturbed by Ryan’s insistence.

“And that’s a fine example of the effect it has on you.” His mouth adheres to the air, pausing before he sends the next portion of his speech. “You learn to accept the pittance that you’re given, because you know that you’ll never get more, and that’s not _your_ fault; it’s mine.”

“I said it’s okay.”

“I’ll try to upgrade, yeah?” Ryan’s demeanor is sullied with prospect, and I’ll definitely be spoiled by guilt if I don’t grant him something.

“Whatever, if that floats your boat.”

My friend’s face forms a depression, his hope stomped upon by my pessimism. “You don’t sound very excited.”

“That’s because I’m used to being ignored.”

“Everyone can adapt,” Ryan implores, truly eager.

“Not me.”

He groans, pushing back in his chair. “Have some faith.”

As my companion corrugates his arms, I wobble on my feet uncomfortably with a concession on my tongue. “Faith isn’t my specialty.”

“Obviously.”

Ryan doesn’t notice my hardship, though he promised only minutes before that he would pay close attention to my needs, and I suppose I couldn’t have expected so much from a mere person, because even when they go so far as to ensure things, the notion is forgotten soon after, so I only glue my limbs to my hips and halt as my friend’s apprehension continues.

“Are you elated for Christmas at least?” Ryan grieves, completely neglecting his assurance that he’d act in a friendly way around me, but I suppose part of it may be my fault, because I’ve been described as stubborn far too often for it to be nondescript, but even so, it’s reneging on our pact, so my standing is mostly disgruntled.

I shrug without an opinion on the subject, murmuring, “I guess.”

Letdown spurns Ryan’s face, and I fidget from his foiled impression. “Is that the best you can do?”

“Probably, yeah.”

Mild laughter smokes the house, a tad originating from the ferocious Dallon Weekes, and noticing the mournful twitch on my lips, Ryan rises and escorts me out of the room to meet the rest of the people.

“Consider telling Gerard, won’t you?” he whispers on our way out, a bit too close for my liking, but he backs up after.

“Maybe.”

“Okay.” A beam espouses my friend’s geniality, and he delays to absorb its full power. “That’s all I wanted.”

I don’t reciprocate any form of communication, only follow Ryan into the living room, where Gerard has already opened a bottle of sparkling apple cider and is pouring it into champagne glasses for Lindsey to distribute amongst the guests.

Pete snares my attention, desisting his activity with Frank to stare longingly at me. As I trudge over, he pats a seat on the couch next to him and invites me to sit. “What was that all about?”

I glance over at Ryan, then at Dallon, who is heartily chatting with Lindsey about the various sciences of wine, as if he’s some sort of oenophile without a prior interest in those beverages before. “We were just...catching up.”

“Did you have a good time?” Pete shifts over so that he’s more properly addressing me, his extremity leashed onto the back of the couch.

“Yeah” flows as a reflex, but we both know it’s biased. I just don’t have the courage to tell him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: beedo beedo now someone knoe
> 
> current vibe: when my friend recorded me singing so I could get my rubber maggot back
> 
> ~Duhkoota


	32. i am a smol rat

Human festivities are all I see around me: a large Christmas tree looming overhead, variegated glasses of liquid spilled on the counter, commercialized music being strummed through the speakers. Christmas in general.

I'm pretty sure no one in this house has ever had a knack for spiritualism, which makes it all the more enticing when we sing Christmas carols about our love and devotion towards the savior, Jesus Christ. It's all in the irony, I suppose.

Gerard carries a drunken stupor, though only by saturation from the sparkling apple cider, as he dances clumsily with Frank, proving to be quite the struggle for the shorter boy in the ugliest yellow cardigan I've seen, most likely to be more ironic than all of us.

Dallon only observes from the corner, Lindsey chatting away and thinking he's listening, his sapphire eyes capturing many sights before settling to a seismic cessation on me, who unfortunately happens to be a lonely fellow in the opposite corner with my best friend swept away by the flamboyant Brendon Urie as Ryan wrestles to hold on to them.

Dallon's hand protrudes cautiously to stop Lindsey's bubbling personality, and he rouses from the sofa to offer me a dance.

"Why would I dance with you?" I scoff, backing into the wall until there's no place left to go.

A smile reflects the mood of the glittering lights around us, and his voice portrays a standard Victorian man on a holiday. "Because it's Christmas, and the spirit is in the air."

"It's just another day out of three hundred and sixty-five."

"Your friends are watching," Dallon reminds me through unnecessarily gritted teeth, and before he can progress with any manipulative schemes, I enclose my fingers around his gloves and lead him into the foyer, where the aforementioned chaos proceeds.

"I hope you're having a nice time," my attacker wishes, vision absent from me and twirling through the room with the dance skills he's never had.

"Not really."

"That's a shame."

"Hmm," I say, loosely witnessing the other events flicking the air with their holiday joy of which I will have no part, such as Gerard dipping Frank and almost dropping him, or Lindsey rising to put Ryan out of his misery of trying to dance with both Pete and Brendon and tangoing with him instead.

"You used to love Christmas," Dallon reminisces, oblivious to my lassitude.

"I used to love a lot of things." My spotlight then subsides onto him, austere. "Including you."

"But now there's just hatred, yeah?"

"Basically."

Dallon chuckles dryly, fake merriment tarring his disposition that I know to be malevolent. "Won't you lighten up for Christmas?"

"Not likely."

"I've noticed that your answers have been getting shorter." Dallon nods in agreement with himself, considering his hypothesis to be stable.

"Like my patience with you."

"Ah, that had more words this time!" he chirps, muscles tensing from thrill underneath my quivering grasp.

My blood is cleaned with ice, having had enough of this man's antics. "I hate talking to you. That's why I don't say much, and you should've recognized it sooner from the way I abhor your presence."

No signs of damage stamp Dallon's face, but I still assume them, for he's always been adept at shadowing his emotions beneath arrogance. "You really detest me that much?"

"Absolutely." My stare antiquates the conversation until it's obsolescent to travel on, but Dallon is persistent as hell, so he only elongates the strife, just as he elongated our relationship when it should have ended immediately after my psychosis screening so that I couldn't harm him and he couldn't harm me.

"I didn't think I did anything wrong." Dallon synthesizes two parts of pretentiousness and genuine obtuseness to invent a concoction of my utter hostility towards him, and in no way am I thankful, even for the opportunity to degrade him further.

"You're still here, aren't you? Remorseful people usually vanish."

A smirk lightens his mouth, acting as though he's achieved something important in annoying me. "Not this one."

"Pity," I drawl, hastily clenching his shoulder before releasing it again, just enough to tell him that his existence here is a blight upon the cottage, and that spending Christmas with us isn't going to persuade me in favor of him, no matter if it's a season of cheer.

I notice that Pete's broken up with his partner of Brendon to grant Ryan a chance with the extroverted nymph, and he's now ambling towards me with an ambivalent pigmentation to his skin.

"Would you save me from this beast?" I pretend to jest, but the connotations still lie beneath, and Dallon partially understands them but says nothing.

"Uh, yeah, sure."

"He's just kidding about me being a beast," Dallon soothes shakily, but Pete is skeptical.

"No, he's not." And before Dallon can reject the statement, I'm circumscribed by the dance floor and Pete's contact with me, and my attacker's complaints are but background noise.

Our puzzle pieces join more fluidly than mine had with Dallon, an ambrosial bud within the Christmas tree from the upbeat music watering its poised figure as it blooms, and every step is calculated — not by the mind, however, but by the heart, and that's more than I can ask of my attacker, who is most frequently glib in an amnesic coating and not worth my time.

But Pete Wentz most definitely is, and his feet, licking the dance floor with more elegance than I've ever seen, reflect the mental opulence at which his grace only hinted, and I'm now experiencing it for myself.

That's far away, though, farther than I've ever been, and staying cooped in my room won't boost my ambitions, only smother them, but there's something about Pete Wentz that tempts me into believing that I actually left the enclosure of my house, and though I hate lies, this one's different, because it makes me think that I did something worthwhile with my life, something that people insist is already there but is the consistency of nitrogen to me.

What's right here, on the contrary, is just as blissful as anything else that could pass by the window of the train heading towards paradise, and that paradise exists with the man locked in a messy — yet guileless — fandango with me, and if I ever doubted heaven and hell before, that notion is just a fallen petal outside of its vase, where it ultimately doesn't belong.

Some part of me would argue that I, too, don't belong, primarily as Pete's dance partner, but nothing has stopped us, especially not Dallon, which serves as a surprise to both me and him, an electrical arcana shredding our cohesion as Pete is unaware of the whole situation.

That doesn't stop him nevertheless, for his face marvels at the stentorian melodies, occupying shapes of music, lights, and decorations, and it appears as though he aspires to share his discoveries with me. "I just love Christmas," Pete gasps, Indus River locks cradled in the buzzing cadence of yet another holiday song.

"I don't see what's so great about it."

Pete clutches his breath to him, aghast. "What about the carols? The snow? The ornaments? Surely you at least didn't forget about pumpkin spice lattes." Noting upon my lack of response, my friend's face is shot by mishap and disaster. "Patrick Stump, you complete and utter killjoy."

"Pete Wentz, you complete and utter white girl."

"Whatever," he retorts, rolling his eyes. "I actually accept my quite admirable title, so you've already been upstaged, kid."

"Dork."

"My little cabbage," Pete remarks, preying on my nose for a one-sided kiss that I shove away in disdain and a bit of laughter.

I chuckle faintly around the creeping flute of the current song, disrupting our dance to push my friend a few inches to the left. "Pete Wentz, anglicizing French terms since he could talk."

A shrug pliés within my companion's shoulders, collecting a cool manner throughout our bantering. "Or since I became a hipster."

My brows fill to the brim of my forehead, a daunted aqueduct upon my flesh. "A white girl _and_ a hipster? You're full of mysteries."

"So I've been told." Pete winks.

"Please tell me that wasn't a sex joke."

"Would it kill you if it were?"

"Nearly." Through my consternated ilk, a giggle cues my vocal chords to react, and soon the entire hall is veiled in splendor for no reason other than to release our guilt, and it's nice to do so, but the reprieve ends when I monitor the absence of coloration on Dallon's face, just a shell nestled in the corner, but I don't let it sway me.

The moment feels like a long gone justice that has just staged its grand reopening, and it's my unspoken duty to savor it until the sun endeavors to point its toes above the horizon without prosperity, but I do my best anyway in order to gift my friends a merry holiday.

It's Christmas, apparently the time of generosity, and it's time I become generous towards myself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I forgot that I needed to add another scene to this, so I'll just make a new chapter whatevs
> 
> current vibe: when my history teacher showed us "the men who built america" and when he saw nikola tesla he was like "who's that handsome guy in the corner" i'm cry,gning
> 
> ~Gaykota


	33. remember to feed your maggot

Yet another bottle of sparkling apple cider sews a river from its tip to my wine glass, chased by an obsessive snarl from Gerard that mildly puts me off, but I only thank him for the consideration, but that’s mostly because I realize that he’s sacrificing his favorite beverage to allot some to the rest of us, and that means something special to him.

“Perhaps we should propose a toast,” Gerard suggests, emigrating to his chair once his task has been completed and positioned in the space before him.

“You’re really into this whole Christmas thing, aren’t you?” I chaff, analyzing the soussouses of the carbonation inside my cup so that I can’t see Gerard chastising me for being such a Debby downer.

“Never mind that.” The host shakes his head, dismissing me for a reputation of stupidity, and he confronts the crowd strewn across the table. “A toast to our occupancy here.”

Our glasses illuminate the dining room, shredding leather silhouettes within the crystal of the adjacent chandelier as they block the darkness from spreading anywhere else, and a chorus of “cheers” aligns the stars with our dinner party.

My wariness is ostensibly eternal, until my neighbor’s glass coordinates with mine, and the air is wholly alive with Christmas spirit, so I lighten up for the traditions.

“Excuse us for a moment,” Ryan pardons himself unexpectedly, scooting out of his chair and dragging Brendon along with him to an unknown destination. “We’ll be back soon.”

Dallon watches as the two boys dissipate from the room in a vaporific mélange, studying every move, every step, every nirvana of proprioception, and a conclusion is salvaged from the tumult. “It seems your friends always leave, Patrick.”

Abomination brews inside me, leaves whirling as a precursor to a storm without questioning why I’m all of the sudden so angry when I’m never usually so worked up, but rage does not cease for logic, and that’s idolized in an effigy cast towards my attacker.

“Don’t listen to him,” Pete instructs in a low bar, tantalizing my comfort with a sole tap of the knee.

Dallon detects the bond and leans back in his chair, cachinnating out of the farce of all of this. “You rely on Pete for everything, don’t you?”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t know what that’s like,” I divulgate. “No one ever liked you enough to offer that chance.”

A sophic moan tunes Lindsey’s larynx, and her glass prints the table cloth as she begins. “It isn’t the time for this.”

“You wanted us to resolve our conflict, so why not do it now?” is Dallon’s defense, and though it’s flimsy, it’s the only thing that he can fabulate quickly.

“Because it’s Christmas dinner!” the woman roars with a certain accuracy to her claim that neither of us care to admit. “Gerard, tell them.”

Gerard is taken off guard, but he fleetly mutters a brief “yeah, you’re right” before he continues to bully a mound of mashed potatoes on his plate, the entertainment from Ryan and Brendon vanished.

Frank, however, pipes up from next to his putative boyfriend with something actually helpful. “You can settle your dispute later, but you must remember that there are other people besides you at this table who are just trying to enjoy their meal.”

“Right, sorry,” I apologize, sinking into my food while queueing sporadic glances towards the assailant across the table. Belligerence still rends my neck, compelling me to add another thought. “You know, dinner table drama is part of the reason why I hate Christmas.”

A tempest of exasperation undulates upon Frank’s face, his stalwart solution lost in his own sea. “Just relax, Patrick.”

“People like me don’t relax,” I contradict, hands mastering an earthquake close to Pete’s. “They relapse.” My head makes a beeline towards my opponent, crafted with danger and venom while concomitantly seething. “Isn’t that right, Dallon?”

His sapphire irises vitrify into black glass through a manufacturing process of pure irascibility towards someone he used to love, irascibility towards someone currently berating him for being so bellicose, irascibility towards someone who’s had enough.

Persisting through my attacker’s silent mordancy, I display a plethora of vexing expressions to wind him up and usher the truth out of him, and the deluge soon floods in.

“ _How dare you_ ,” Dallon fumes, the handle on his fork barely pliant enough to contain his virulence.

My brows cambre in an unmistakably flexible manner, mouth parting in astonishment. “Oh, you didn’t tell them?”

“Patrick, stop,” Lindsey apprises, sheer panic shedding its mask in her chocolate irises, but I don’t heed her warning, only pursue my old friend’s nerves.

“I thought a cigarette addiction would be difficult to hide.”

“Shut the hell up.” Dallon’s voice is a blend of spleen and misery, each like a blade to skin, but I deftly twine my wrists in bandages so that the magic won’t transfer to me as it had to him, because it was in the end a life ruiner when he did this to himself before now in pretending he was all right, even when he cracked, and the tables have turned.

I was the ocean, and he was the moon, but I’m just now realizing that maybe a concept such as that isn’t as productive as I had once thought. No one should control another like Dallon controlled me, because if this is the end result, it’s clear how horrifying the outcome is, and we should all be running in fear.

We shouldn’t be like this, whether I’m noting on two years ago or this very moment, because one is filled with despondency, and the other is filled with contempt, so weighing the pitfalls is just wasted time that we spend on bickering from a standpoint of delusion without considering the fact that even two years ago we were unhealthy and ugly and messed up teenagers who couldn’t boss around their emotions with the strength at which they bossed _us_ around, and we’re the same people in that aspect, if not in alternate aspects by effect of hatred for each other, because our emotions seem to be ruled by outside forces, but we joined them together in the search of help that existed only in our paranoid conceptions, and we were lying to one another and to ourselves through it all.

We didn’t riot, though, because it felt natural to depend on each other for emotional support, but we then grew into positions where Dallon was convinced that he was protecting me, and I still didn’t testify, because I suppose it looked nice in my cage.

Now that I’m free, now that the moon doesn’t control my waves, I’m ready to fight, because even if I drown in myself, I’m not hailing a meaningless rock in space, and through this the world has begun to think that I’m a person worth acknowledging.

Of course I don’t utilize that power for anything fruitful though, because the moon is still the antagonist that made me love a battlefield painted with my crimson watercolors, and maybe that isn’t so right. Maybe I deserve to live, to breathe, to break free from Dallon’s force and hunt for a solace of my own without being bothered by the fact that it’s eons away. It’s not like I’ll listen, especially not now, where Lindsey is reprimanding me for being so astringent, where she’s so ineffective.

“Patrick, don’t be a petulant child!” the woman scolds, a petrified circus touring her face as no fucks tour mine.

“Lindsey, don’t be a hover parent!” I mock, fueled by the perpetually bristling Dallon across from me.

“I _will_ be a hover parent if I need to, because you don’t have the right to share someone’s secrets without that person’s permission.”

“Well now you know,” Dallon concludes, gaze frozen in amber with a monotone barely slipping past the wall.

“Dallon…” Lindsey’s throat parches as her words break away into a futile gap of indifference, but her concern fails to affect my attacker.

Frank’s hand crooks through the coal jungle of his hair, elbow hammering the table. “Can we just agree to drop this subject?”

“It’s clear that Dallon is uncomfortable,” Pete adds, and I notice that his touch has withdrawn from my knee.

“I’ve _been_ uncomfortable for this whole trip.” My teeth wrangle each other in their vehement brutality, pushing the phrase out.

Pete’s jaw fastens a corset around itself with the indomitable talent of churlishness, and though his sentence is an ordeal to release, he does so anyway and damns the consequences. “Not everything is about you.”

An equivocal light cremates part of my implacable umbrage, and I accost the man I previously thought I adored. “No, you’re right. It’s—”

“We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re ready for Christmas cheer!” the infamous Brendon proclaims, roped to a giggling Ryan Ross in a web of fingers that neither hope to dissect.

“What were you doing in there?” Pete inquires, our darkening contact riven by digression.

“Come and find out.” Ryan winks, and the guests slowly move to investigate the scene that the two kids have planned.

Brendon and Ryan lead us to the living room, which has nothing out of the ordinary that anyone can spy, but the two are grinning like idiots, so there must be something.

I accidentally bump into Pete, muttering a quick apology, and instantaneously, the Ross and Urie duo shriek in ecstasy.

“Look above you, rats!” Brendon instructs, tilting back on his hips with a laugh circulating his body.

Though confused, I do as I’m told, and on the ceiling I detect a sprig of mistletoe strutting to the music that prances in the background.

“Are you serious?” Pete chuckles, an indecipherable contortion adhering to his face as his limbs dial their surrounding hips.

“Positively” is Ryan’s chirp, and with a sigh, Pete pivots to face me, beholding my shrunken frame in all its glory (or lack thereof).

The moment is pacified in anxious stares, in distant woes, in truly believing that hatred is possible in our relationship, but with the coming action, that notion isn’t so far off.

Pete constructs a throne for my chin, breath tugging at mine with a bit more intensity with each second that our lips near, and the heat is becoming so familiar to me that I can smell the pungency of sparkling apple cider on him like a dear friend, but he slants away at the last opportunity, leaving me alone.

“No,” he whispers, a sad smile drafting a tale of poignancy on his face, and I believe I am sincerely abandoned by the one I thought would stay.

Not even the voices did, and I presumed Pete Wentz rose above that standard each and every time I saw him, but both of us are always cloaked in mystery, and this is just the grand reveal.

Maybe he’s always hated me, and maybe enough so to hide it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: this chapter went too quickly like I need to reminisce on Dallon's addiction
> 
> current vibe: when I was trying to hit the high notes of Bohemian Rhapsody in peace, but I could not find anywhere where my parents couldn't hear me
> 
> ~(the next Freddie Mercury) Dakota


	34. [pete wentz screaming in the distance]

I don't know where I'm going, but anywhere is better than here in this lonely cottage atop a mountain that no one but Gerard can find, and if Gerard is able to find me, then it's not the place I need to be.

The man's car keys bisect my fingers as they frolic around inside their prison cell and await the duty of unlocking the automobile's door so that I can run away and forget about all of the people who enjoy calling themselves friends, and the moment chugs along with an absence of acceleration that's so crucial to me. The car is too far away.

My surroundings scream at me throughout my journey to the vehicle, some ordering me to go back and apologize to Dallon for making public his secret, some ordering me to never contact my friends again, some ordering me to run the car right off the mountain, and my final decision is a mix of all three.

I peer into my bag, where a bottle of peroxide cowers away so that it'll earn my pity and its utilization, but that's not my destination. Instead, I procure a pencil and a meager scrap of paper, jotting down six simple words.

_Do not try to locate me._

And with a lowly regard to it, the paper whirls to the ground, likening to a helicopter seed with both its movement and its evocation of peevishness, and I turn my back to the house so that I'm but a cloaked figure in the blankness of night.

A clicking noise signals the unlocking of Gerard's van, and with much more force than is needed, I slide open the door to find myself in the unfamiliar terrain of the driver's seat, an area I had only ogled from the back row due to Gerard's travel restrictions, but brushing away the nervousness in an ample supply, I commence my departure.

My hands yank each other from side to side, pulsing in miniature actions as the key meanders through the slot and breaks its neck trying to start the engine.

Within milliseconds, the automobile is alive with the rumbling of the motor, partially suspending the night's hollow sounds that are only neglected white noise to me, because I have many more things to worry about than the fleeting commotion of the darkness.

The authority granted by the vehicle is unnatural, more than I could've asked of anyone or anything, and half of me debates returning to the house and confessing to all my sins, but Dallon would be the first one suggested to hear it, and I'd rather not present him with ammunition as his Christmas gift. There are better things for that, including the interminable spite I reserve for him.

So with that figured out, the gears arabesque into drive, and my foot plats with the pedal until we're bombinating in total secrecy through the mountain pass as my friends have no idea I left them on Christmas Eve so that I could fulfill my cowardice.

Time is, on the first occasion in history, non-linear, just passing by with a wave and circling back around in various points on the spectrum, all conducting a hideous mess of confusion that I have no availability nor patience to sort through, but it acts as my only companion through the dull venture to wherever it is that's farthest away from the Caribou cottage, and perhaps that's worth gratitude.

My ambition was to take note of the things I reach, but the trees are all just hazes amidst an even hazier sky of midnight-dyed nitrogen that can never seem to dose my lungs with its healing, and every pebble I scrape with the wheels of the car is just another casualty spread across a battlefield in a war that has taken enough lives already to become insignificant. The only monument I see is the steady beacon of the headlights fixed in front of me, imprisoning my attention when it should be elsewhere, but no one is ever out on the streets at eleven o'clock on Christmas Eve, so I allow my mind to wander into wherever it pleases, because at least it's not into the ground when it ultimately kills itself again while embalmed in a metaphor for death, and perhaps the night is soothing.

In many ways, that concept is plausible, and I've always had a kinship towards plausible, the crux enshrined in the uncertainty if anything is even real or not, and though the birds have been slain for the cradle of rest and offer no music to calm my restless nerves, the silence is evermore an unlikely comfort without a feathered partner to assist.

The ataraxia consumes my head until the lights of the town materialize in the gravel and asphalt compound of my path, and the birds are only a side thought, replaced by the merry chattering of the citizens as they feast on Christmas dinner with people who actually love them (or at least pretend to, which is relevant to my case) and stroll around the sidewalks in scarves announced festive by a mere color pattern, through it all seeming more cheery than I could ever be, but my hopes are that I'll absorb some of the delight for myself before I leave for the cottage again.

Because maybe I don't want to be gone forever, and maybe there are people who would genuinely miss me as they engulf themselves in a lie, but then again, true hatred is immersing someone so thoroughly in a misconception that they crumble upon learning that their reality isn't so viable as they had once suspected, and distancing myself from that misery is what I'd consider productive.

I observe the glee of normal pedestrians as the car rolls by, a placid expression transporting the halcyon days directly to me while I near an isolated park lit by holiday lanterns from many different religions.

The vehicle skids through the pavement, jostling its contents at an undesignated stopping space on the curb that I repurpose to parallel park the vessel so that I may ramble about until my lids falter with tiredness and require me to revisit the cottage with shame hauling lead into my step.

The wind slaps me for being so unprepared without a jacket and so ignorant from abandoning my friends at the Caribou lake house, but I guard myself against it by shoving my hands in my jean pockets and lumbering through the park until I encounter a brick wall, faded by the greying affliction of age, and climb atop it to see the vast expanse of the town.

The bar Gerard took us to a few nights ago blares with a dense population on the smoky horizon, and a dysphoric simper sheets my entire composure as I crouch towards the frozen earth without a trace of sense as to where I'm going from here.

Thankfully, it appears that I don't have to anytime soon, because a boy around my age is sauntering my way with a peppy grin tumescing his chilled complexion as he scoots onto the wall with me and without permission.

"Sitting on this wall is dangerous, you know," he warns, spider curls vomiting from his head as he examines his swinging legs while they smack against the bricks.

"Well you're on it anyway."

"Fair point." The boy shrugs, nodding in silence. "What brings you out here?"

A sigh flows out like the poison of a cigarette, the cigarette that entailed a secret that was told and then lured me out here to ponder my troubles. "I made a mistake."

"That's okay. Everyone does."

My jaw leans, contemplating the facts. "I guess."

A smile fiddles the end of the boy's lips as he stares at me in amusement with a tilted view beveling his perspective. "What's your name?" he asks, his voice a pleasant melody merging with the rhythm of the town.

"Patrick Stump," I reply firmly. "You?"

The boy's smile swells wider than before, as if pleased that I asked the question that I did. "I'm Max."

My brows ply in a labor to draw an answer from the kid. "Do you have a last name?"

"Of course — I just don't disclose it to anyone."

"And why is that?" I continue to press, brows still stationary from a few seconds earlier.

Max prepares himself for a speech, groping a carefree countenance to project it. "I prefer to think that I'm nothing special, just a human lost in a city of others exactly like me in the way that they're only trying to move about their lives and find meaning in it, and last names are too garish to complete my wishes of privacy, so I don't use them."

"Surely someone knows your last name."

"Not because I've told them."

My hilarity almost effervesces from my mouth, but I stifle it at the last chance in the realization that it's rude to laugh at someone's theology. "Okay."

"So you made a mistake," Max circles around, humming as he sifts through the vague information. "Let's take your mind off of that."

His proposal is unpredicted, causing me to dip back and almost fall off the wall, but I hold on at the last second to protect a miffed gasp. "I thought you would be a problem solver."

"Isn't this solving it?" Max muses, scratching a symphony into the jagged terrain of the bricks.

"It's just distracting myself."

"There's most likely nothing going on, but you just feel guilty about it anyway." His words strike me head on, and a fraction of me is angry at him for being so assuming, but the remainder of the fraction dictates otherwise, for it knows that this is a better medicine than Dallon's.

My eyes patch Max's fingers with their focus, observing as spirals and ornamental delicacies animate the generally lifeless surface of the wall, and with my strained limelight I forget to speak loudly enough to hear, but the message is nevertheless conveyed. "Maybe."

"Do you like candy canes?" Max grills, hand paused within the deep pocket of his jacket as he waits for my response.

My shoulders fouette indifferently, marking a reply "A bit cliche, but yeah."

"Screw cliche. You're taking one." And without my consent to that last fragment of his diction, he awards me with a pinstriped pole and vanishes from the ledge of the wall.

I study the candy cane intently, tracing its every twist and turn without addressing the fact that the kid has disappeared.

"Did that work well enough to get your mind off things?" When I nod once glancing up, he requites the favor, smiling once more as the wind gambols in his hair. "Then have a good Christmas, Patrick."

As Max's image dwindles in the fog, all I can think is that someone like him cares about me. And that's fucking amazing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: ooh where he going (I promised myself I wouldn't sing cotton eyed joe and I'm not bc I'm stronger than you think)
> 
> current vibe: when I found out where the [pete wentz screaming in the distance] meme came from
> 
> ~Da[n]k[meme]ota


	35. I thought I escaped hell already

I’m in a vacuum that very well may be outer space with the lack of anything that could signal me to a location, but anyone would assure me that I’m only in front of the Caribou home, that I should know this information, yet it’s apparent that I don’t, for I’m wandering aimlessly with my feet contradicting that idea as they evolve towards the structure, but maybe this is where I need to be.

The note is still a fleck in the snow, and I stoop to discard it, tossing the scrap into my pocket without bothering to dry it off and trekking to the house, where the windows drip with soot.

Once left and once right the knob twirls, and the car keys are placed upon the table to the side of the entrance with a prompt click and a nervous spin of the head.

A figure reclines on the couch, a dazzling smile valuing the mirth on him as he stares up at the vast ceiling without a clue as to what he’s doing, but perhaps that’s why he’s so jocular. The man doesn’t know what doom awaits him, and even that doesn’t dampen his mood, because all he understands is that the melancholy isn’t present at the current moment, so he is content.

It’s so different from how it used to be, because in earlier years, looking at him was like looking at a corpse who was persistent on living, but to anyone else, to anyone who didn’t grieve with him, who didn’t suffer with him, who didn’t tear their heart out for him in the hopes that he would do the same, this man appeared as happy as it gets. And perhaps he could’ve been, deep down in that unpredictable soul of his, but that was a while ago, because yes, you may have found him a cheerful person, and I wished I could believe it, too, but against the other odds, there was still the undeniable notion that he was dying, and I couldn’t do a thing about it.

I’m not sure whether it’s refreshing or troubling to see him so jovial, but it’s a shock nevertheless, and my gait languishes in the dimness of the room because of it.

Upon hearing the noise of my ordeal, however faint, Dallon pivots from his position on the settee to identify the intruder, his smile dissolving along with his fun. “Where were you?” he catechizes, standardizing a governmental approach to someone whom he would never want to harm in any way (oh, how the tides have turned).

“That’s none of your business.”

Dallon turns completely upright, legs dangling off the edge of the sofa with a matter of fact demeanor to his posture. “For all I know, you could be shooting up on drugs, which can kill you, by the way.”

“I don’t do drugs. You know that.” My voice is flat and dull like the pencils I run dry trying to document the possibilities of everything I see while avoiding the people who tell me that they don’t mean anything, and Dallon frowns at the lack of life.

“I wish I could be certain of that.” My old friend’s words are excruciating, fermenting a darkness upon the area as the ambiguity floods back.

“Did you ever even trust me at all?”

“Of course I did,” he heartens, tone suddenly brighter, though it’s clear that it’s all just a passive-aggressive scheme. “But as you said, we’re not the same people as we were two years ago.”

I rock back onto my hips, a breathy laugh being harvested in my lungs. “Sometimes I feel like we use that term to further our stances, but what does it mean?”

“It’s perhaps the only truthful maxim we’ve stumbled upon to describe this woe.” Dallon commences a ponderous silence, and eventually he rises. “I’m going to bed. You deserve a reprieve from me.”

I nod, exculpating a rush of air in relief as my old friend vanishes from the room, and I follow the same direction he had taken, feeling tired myself.

The unneeded desire to apologize for Christmas Eve dinner storms inside me, and I swivel to traverse towards Dallon’s chambers, but the man stops me with a hollow premonition of death in his usually sapphire eyes, now acidified into ebony.

“Can I help you?” I extend, barely backing up when I should be miles away by now from the intensity of his stare.

The man pauses for a few seconds, succeeded by a chasse of the garnet lips upon his skin as his oxygen dashes through the night. “Run.”

Without thinking, just acting upon the reflex that Dallon granted me when we first met that soon threaded into a routine, I sprint down the hall, sliding past him without a trace of his contact on me.

“Patrick, you worthless little nub!” the man howls, the crashing of his body against the walls audible from yards ahead as he torpedoes towards me in a pursuit of which no one knows.

My panting indoctrinates any steady inhalations in its favor, and my trachea flames with fatigue, but I have to keep on going. I have to escape, and I have to do it for my fifteen year-old self so that at least one of us emerged victorious.

The perfect solution comes to mind, manifesting in the chamber closest to me in the hopes that it’ll provide me with a quick getaway, and I sprint towards it as the door blocks me from the hallway. The lock to the bedroom remains to be unsealed, but with the fumbling nature of Dallon’s ambitions, he won’t find me in here anyway.

My respiration battles the interior of my windpipe, teeth scraping every wall with an unmatched velocity that never ceases…until someone walks in.

“Patrick?” a mouse yelps, pinching the larynx of none other than Dallon Weekes, who was chasing me only moments before.

“What are you doing here? You-you’re…” My brows tighten the strings around them, my breathing becoming more and more forced with each second, and it seems like I’m going to collapse and pass out, but then Dallon would be free to mutilate my body without any protest from me, and I can’t let that can’t happen, so I lean on the wall for balance, because if my lingual functions are out the window, I hope to preserve the other ones.

“What are you trying to say?”

“You were just running around the house in search of me, but you seem so docile right now,” I narrate through labored panting as my hand wrestles with the wall.

The man cocks his head and points down the hall, perplexed. “I was in bed.”

True enough, Dallon’s hair is typical of someone who just rolled out of bed in a hurry, with its unruly tufts and curls that are never visible once combed through, and a t-shirt thoroughly cherishes the tiredness weighing down his lithe figure.

Yet it’s not like I can judge him for being so unkempt, considering he discovered something extremely remote in his heart to jolt from his sleep and aid me, and I don’t know if I should be thankful or terrified by the nonsensical vantage of all of this.

But this is all preposterous, because Dallon was just now sprinting through the halls in a mad pursuit of me, and though I have no idea why he was doing such a thing, it transpired nonetheless, and it should be regarded with a fresh and unbiased view, so if it looks as though Dallon just flayed the sheets from his body after a deep slumber, then perhaps he did.

On the contrary, this doesn’t appear as something that Dallon would do, checking up on me and all, but how could my mind envision a person with such depth and detail? However, I can’t recall the earlier version of the man, so there’s no saying which one was more realistic.

Still, he continues to talk to me through my existential crisis, asking, “Patrick, are you sure you’re okay?”

My head whizzes all around, twitching and flailing in the paramount confusion. “Uh, um, y-yeah. I’m fine.”

“Do you want me to stay with you?”

Do I? On one side, Dallon James Weekes has been proclaimed the evilest person I’ve ever met, but on the other hand, he _did_ come to set things in order after he detected a suspicious anecdote scalping the air, so I might as well enjoy the opportunity.

Even so, half the population of humans only investigate strange matters to soothe their minds, meaning they don’t give two shits about what’s happening to other people and would just as easily kick dirt in someone’s face when the show isn’t as dazzling as they had anticipated, and Dallon Weekes is no exception, primarily because I hate him, he hates me, and we’re both engrossed in a melting pot of derision.

So my emerald irises flick back and forth, wobbling towards the sapphire deities with a misplaced captivation, but I quickly snap out of the affair and facilitate my answer. “That won’t be necessary.”

The emotion that bayonets the man’s eyes is so fleeting that I can’t identify it, but the simple way he turns himself away from me suggests that he’s disappointed. “Just…” His fingers enrich the threshold, paused in a glimmer of time that he’ll never be able to acquire again. “Take care of yourself. If you won’t open up to me, open up to Pete, or maybe even yourself.”

I only study the echo of gunfire before a track race that fills my heart’s atria, neglecting the man that once neglected me, because it’s what I need, and if he’s so determined on having someone take care of me, then this is it. At least it’s something, and he knows that I’ve reached the bottom of deeper holes, that this is a start.

Because I’m not anxious, and I’m not shaking, and I’m not drowning — voluntarily or otherwise — and that may be because of Dallon, and it may not, and if my heart has finished its track race with only the petrichor of gunpowder linting the air, then it’s as if I’m safe.

I’m still not safe enough to allow Dallon access into the room with me, but I’m positive that he’s already grateful.

“But I see you’re already taking care of yourself,” Dallon contradicts, and a smile is the zenith of his performance before he goes.

And I am left to ponder the mystery.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: mmm what the fUCK was this
> 
> also sorry for the slow update
> 
> current vibe: when my history teacher brought out baby photos of him, and everyone crowded around to laugh at them
> 
> ~DaffyDuckota


	36. cryan ross

“Patrick, it’s time to get up,” a familiar voice coos, a gentle kiss pronging the tip of my nose as I release a disfavored groan and curl the pillow around me to block out the real world.

“Five more minutes,” I screech through the muffler of cotton.

Pete chuckles a twitterpated rhapsody, still unrelenting. “It’s Christmas.”

I spring from the bed in an abrupt hurricane of elation, glee popping in my skin. “Christmas?”

“Yeah, and everyone’s gathering around the tree.” While I’m too stunned to react, Pete uses the chance to hybridize his hand with my hair as he pushes it back and sinks his lips into mine with an indomitable warmth.

The warmth is so thorough and genuine that he must have forgotten about what I did last night, how he wouldn’t fulfill the mistletoe tradition because of it. He’ll be prodded about it soon, though, when he sees the distrustful stare of Dallon around the Christmas tree as it clashes with the conventional merriment of the season.

This anxiety gores any sort of pleasure from being so close to Pete, but I would be living a lie if it weren’t present, and it’s been made evident that I abhor lies, yet I hate this sensation even more, but we’re now moving towards the living room after peeling away, so I can’t be distracted by my own nervousness.

Everyone but Ryan is domesticated on the couch near the cackling fire as they await the remainder of their party, and only one is absent.

“Where’s Ryan?” Gerard’s wondering discorticates the color from his usually hazel irises as it sticks to every area of the room in the expedition to find the milky Ryan Ross.

Brendon removes his legs from under him, rising from the couch with a proposal. “Should I find him?”

“If that’ll wake him up.”

With a cheerful nod, Brendon skips away to locate the slumbering Ryan, whom he’ll probably tackle upon sight until he begs for mercy, and the guests wait excitedly for his return, glasses of egg nog poised a tad too fervidly in their clutch.

“Did you sleep well?” Lindsey greets, her face confined to sophistication, and I glance over at Pete.

“This asshole woke me up.”

Pete nestles into me, his tone a scalding breeze in my ear. “We let you sleep for long enough, Patrick.”

“Not long enough. I’m still tired.”

Still tired from last night, that is. The night where I was chased around the house by an ostensible hallucination, which is the most logical thing I can think of, seeing as I’ve never been one for the supernatural, and my heart is still pumping.

Dallon is busying himself with something on his nail, probably something fake that will redirect him away from his old friend on the sofa, because like me, he’s miffed about what happened last night, just without the plethora of possibilities and only the notion that I’m not all right in some shape, and there’s a certain mystery that arises from those circumstances.

My analysis of Dallon is interrupted when Ryan stumbles into the room with an eager Brendon cleaving to his neck and burning hickeys into the flesh, but Ryan is too knackered to stop him, with his lids barely open and functional.

“Brendon, how about you get me some milk?” he grumbles, smacking away the all too fluorescent boy attached to him.

“We already have egg nog, though.” The homosexual desquamates himself from his boyfriend long enough to gesture towards the platter of oddly colored substances foaming in glasses upon the coffee table.

“Egg nog is sketchy.”

Brendon huffs, but he loves Ryan to the point where he complies anyway, distributing his abilities to the kitchen to pour some milk for his friend, and our interval continues, but we don’t reflect our peevishness and dampen the Christmas mood.

The man rebounds into the room again with a full glass of milk, placing it in Ryan’s hold with a scowl before crashing into the couch with his boyfriend as the kid struggles to keep the liquid inside the cup.

Lindsey’s on an expedition to administer presents to each of us, but Dallon dispenses mine before she can get to me, a peculiar expression adulterating him.

As the woman disperses Pete’s present to him, she winks to both of us, saying, “I think Patrick would like you to unwrap yours first.”

Pete peers over at me, searching for my approval, which I kindly give with the only hidden version of fear. He begins, meticulously shucking the wrapping paper and tossing it to the floor for a precise Frank to sweep up into a trash bag, and upon discovering the boxed figure of the gift, Gerard supplies him with some scissors, which he uses to slice through the seal.

My teeth battement through the impatience, observing as Pete peels back the layers to the cardboard contraption and predicting the worst. What if he doesn’t like it? What if he’s disappointed with me? What if he hates me for it?

The opposite is the reality, though, for as Pete beholds the crystal finch I had purchased for him, a gasp is all that is manageable as adoration devours his entire body, stretching until he can no longer speak properly without whispering. “Patrick, this is amazing.”

In his love for the object, he forgets to ogle me just the same as the bird, but he soon requires that of himself, embracing my lips with his own while the strawberry fields edify my spirit.

The room thrives with applause from everyone but Dallon, who frowns in the corner of his chair with his gift tapping along to the beat of his knee. “Perhaps you should go next, Patrick,” he advocates, hints of mischief ramming into his words sporadically.

Disregarding his obvious ill-will, I accept the challenge and ventilate the box as its top scampers away to unmask something that could only be a joke. “Are you fucking serious?” I scream.

Dallon’s brows lance with pother, caught in the turmoil. “Yes?”

I fit my hand around the menacing bottle of hydrogen peroxide to display it to the guests. “This has to be a prank.”

“Do you not like it?” Frank inquires in lieu of his friend, attempting to filter the situation and procure a conclusion.

My elocution is a whirlwind of pneumatic hell set on murder, propped at the apex of human chords. “What kind of sick person gives hydrogen peroxide as a Christmas gift?”

Dallon shrugs sardonically. “Well I don’t know, because that’s not hydrogen peroxide.”

Taken completely by surprise, my breathing halts. “What?”

“Those are gloves,” Dallon clarifies, posing in a manner that denotes spelling it out for me. “I heard you needed these.”

“I heard you did, too,” I retort with an unwillingness to submit to Dallon’s logic.

He neglects my spite, just muttering, “Merry Christmas, Patrick.”

“Hey, are you okay?” Pete murmurs in my ear, and I shy away from him, uncomfortable from the prior experience.

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

Osmosis bends through us until Pete’s curled into me as he inhales the evergreen of my skin and rushes a sigh out of his lungs. “If that’s what you want.”

However, Gerard isn’t so easygoing and never ceases his flow of questions. “Do you need to talk?”

“Please don’t damage your Christmas because of me.”

“You’re not damaging our Christmases, Patrick,” Gerard assures, face tempering. “We’re all atheists anyway, just looking for extra geniality.”

“I’d rather you open your presents and enjoy yourselves.”

The man’s brows enfeeble, asking once again, “Are you sure?”

I nod. “Absolutely.”

He continues to stare in the hopes that I’ll change my mind, but I don’t, so he finally relents. “Well okay then.”

Pete again constitutes an orchestra of denial in my ear, and in an escape, I shift so that I’m reclining on his chest as I infuse a route of kisses into his jaw.

“Stop trying to divert me,” he warns half jokingly and half seriously.

“I can’t even stop diverting myself.” It seems like a simplistic game that I’m playing, but we both know that I’ve never had full control over myself and what goes on inside me, though it’s supposed to be a holiday of fun and sometimes games, so we pay no mind to it.

“I’ve offered you help, but you have always refused it.”

“I told you to enjoy your Christmas, Peter.” I swat my friend away in partial jocularity, then diving back into him.

“I will if I get what I want.”

Pandering to his possibly perverted comment, I fix a hand to his chest, alive and aching, and ask what it is that he wants.

“I want every bit of you — every morsel, every crumb, every speck amidst a galaxy that still means the most out of all other things — but I know I cannot have such wonders, because they are not mine to take. But Patrick, if you’ll give them to me, then I’ll devour any apprehension and fucking drown in you.”

Paused by the unexpected depth of Pete’s wish, though nevertheless consenting, the man registers it as a call to cushion his lips on mine, not fretting about the guests’ responses.

“Merry Christmas, Pete Wentz,” I sigh.

“A merry Christmas indeed.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: JUST THROW ME IN A FUCKING RIVER
> 
> HOW IS THIS LEVEL OF CUTENESS LEGAL
> 
> current vibe: when I Hate Everything mocked damn daniel and ended up accidentally making a meme
> 
> ~Dankota


	37. stand up for jesus

It’s sickening, and I want it to end. Dallon shouldn’t be conversing with Lindsey, especially not so joyfully, and Lindsey shouldn’t be so susceptible to his magic, or whatever it is that Dallon claims to have.

I’m enraged by both of them right now as I witness this treason from the threshold where they could only see me if they turned around and broke free of their petty games, which would be half what I want and half what I don’t, because on one side, they would finally come to their senses, but on the other side, they would catch me spying on them, and though it’s for any profit why I’m doing such a thing, it’s not like they’ll know or care while the only thing that’s logical is that I’m stalking them, but I’m not responsible for cursing something that should’ve never happened in the first place.

Things were moving on a steady rate, but one sight begins the fluctuation of my heartbeat with an unbridled intensity as my fists tremble with rage.

They’re _laughing_. Together.

Lindsey Ballato definitely doesn’t deserve to be manipulated by an attacker that fucked me up in the mind with twice the blow than I fucked myself up, and if Lindsey’s doing fine and has no idea what it’s like to suffer, then she’s in for complete devastation once the storm scalds the earth.

As a human, it’s my duty to separate such treachery from both tails, but I’m paused by an erratic swipe of the arm that wounds my stomach with dread.

I don’t know what’s happening, just that I’m convulsing on the floor with my friends suddenly swarming me to find a solution to a woe that no one can label.

Someone that I barely recognize to be Pete slides a pillow under my head in an attempt to protect me from my own muscle spasms, and his motions are frantic, because he has no clue what to do in this kind of ordeal — no one does, but the others are trying somewhat adeptly to assist, while he loves me too much to act diplomatically.

Even Dallon is checking to make sure that nothing is in my mouth for me to choke on, as if he cares when I choke on a daily basis, albeit both metaphorically and in the form of post-traumatic panic attacks, and I presume he is cognizant of the connotations, so he proceeds to loosen the buttons near my neck, though that’s not much of an improvement, as both actions prevent choking, but he’s kind of doing his best.

“Hello? 911?” Gerard wails into the speaker, and I have no idea why he’s doing that, because I’m not sure what’s transpiring at the current moment, but I at least realize that it’s probably not worthy of the American emergency phone number — I’m not that significant to anyone, and whatever this malady is should be the host of my funeral and shouldn’t be relinquished for perfect health.

I’ve envisioned my funeral many times before, and my friends were nowhere in the dreary landscape to lament for my rotting corpse. There was only a well anticipated rendezvous with death, but we would merely stand there with a tacit bond around each other, and in some ways it was like an inversion, because I was tanner and happier and _smiling_ , and the scene depicted itself as real life when “living” was only death, causing this funeral of mine to be all the more charming until I desired it to come sooner.

And maybe it was tragic for me to apprehend such ghastly events, but everything was still and silent, whereas this life is teeming with paroxysms as of late, and you can’t blame me for admiring my downfall as it’s perceived to others when the downfall perceived by myself is much worse.

It’s a consolation, though, when I am conscious of the fact that my perceived downfall is nearing, and that it’s not as bad as others would have me think, so I believe I got lucky in the range that others don’t. Nevertheless, I still had to endure the hell that is daily life, and that’s much more prolonged than a single funeral, so there’s no deciding which group swept through the bed of roses with a smile and retained enough optimism to do the same through the thorn bush.

However, my wait is over, because whatever this is has begun to engulf me in its dominance and is swallowing any riots that never would’ve been uttered anyway, and I surmise that I’ve won for now.

Even through the delirium of my friends, I have been liberated in the darkness of failing lids against a palette of ebony shades that circulate the blood of many rivers with a precision that I can undeviatingly follow into the grave.

And as I drift away to that safe haven, there is only one figure that greets me with a grin as he steals my soul, and it is certain that I have won.

~~~~~

There’s a sort of muffler on my inhalation, a change in atmosphere present, and it’s not something I’d like to dwell in often, as it’s decorated with pollution and residual scraps left on wrappers and perhaps the worst stench of desperation I’ve ever encountered in my life, and it’s not like I know what’s going on, having had my lids dressed in black for my own funeral, but the people around me are insistent on rushing me to an unknown destination, and with the fumbling slur of my speech, I can’t protest at all.

Some part of me dictates that I shouldn’t protest, though, because yeah, my friends will persevere covertly after I won’t cut them some slack, but this seems serious enough for my good behavior.

Even so, I should be malicious, because I thought I was dying and accepted that, so I prepared to see the savior of death who never succeeded in robbing me of my position in the Caribou cottage, and now I’m in some opprobrious automobile with people who only pretend to be defending me until the end but will anyway jump off of the bandwagon when they get the chance to be unchained from their petulant child of a companion.

Gerard is at the wheel, clouting his hair behind his ears while a frenzy consumes him in every aspect — slumped posture, tense shoulders, shaking legs as he hurries to drive somewhere, somewhere whose location is unforeseen for me.

I’m pinched in the folds of Pete’s hoodie as he brings me tightly to him like I’ll somehow drift away otherwise, like I’m not absolutely terrified of what’s going on, like I even know what that is, and the man is just as familiar with an earthquake as Gerard, and maybe their intentions were to soothe me by taking me somewhere important, but this cloud of nervousness is now contaminating my own body.

“He’s awake!” Frank alerts the rest of the passengers, startling me more than the general aura of Gerard’s van.

Pete tilts his head down to behold me, romping in my peroxide fibers as a sigh assuages his troubles. “Are you doing okay, buddy?”

“What the hell happened?” I weasel around within Pete’s arms, exploring many different positions to accommodate my aching limbs, sore from who knows what, but I hope to receive an explanation for my misery soon.

Instead, I’m only allowed solemn rotations of the skull, sockets staring me down like I did something wrong, but all I’m trying to do is figure out why I’m in a car all of the sudden with the premonition that it’s my fault, and I don’t know if that’s why they’re angry with me — I must’ve interrupted their Christmas afternoons — but I’m more confused than they are, and I should earn some research before I’m subdued.

“Where are we going?” I persist, less than accidentally shanking Pete with my elbows when he won’t give me an answer.

“You’ll see,” Lindsey replies from the passenger seat, her tone surprisingly calm for the situation, but I suppose it’s more chaotic for me than for her, considering I don’t know where the hell I am, and there’s a kind of power that is unearthed when you know things that other people don’t which grows larger when you have control over their fate, and this is all just judging her from my own standard of pandemonium, so nothing I just said really matters anyway.

However, I’d still like to understand why we’re moving so quickly down the road in the middle of Christmas Day with hectic expressions indurating our mouths as we endeavor to refrain from biting them through the stress of all of this, but I’ve been neglected a few times already, so maybe that prospect isn’t so attainable.

“Please tell me,” I whine. “I deserve to comprehend why we’re in this weird vehicle.”

Gerard scoffs as he drives, undertones of his earlier panic still waxing his delivery. “Hey, my car isn’t weird!”

“Yes, it is, but that’s beyond the point. Where are we going?”

Pete sows a kiss onto my head, lingering on me with a welcoming embrace as some sort of Machiavellian compromise that I hate yet need. “We don’t want to upset you. You’ll see later.”

I saber him once more, ungluing myself from his touch, even if it’s warm and sweet and pleasant, because I have a mission to fulfill. “I want to see now!”

“Just trust me, yeah?” Pete’s eyes are authentically tenderized by devotion to me and my requests, and it’s somewhat evident that guarding me is against his wishes, so I lay off a bit.

Scowling, I cross my arms. “I hate you.”

Without warning, Pete’s extremities coupe around me as they insufflate the evergreen forest and amalgamate with the strawberry fields that have always been a blessing to me, and now it feels like home. “And I’m keeping you safe, because I love you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: READY 2 FITE, NUB FUCKERS???
> 
> current vibe: white people getting cold all the time and then commenting about it to their equally as suburban friends (why do I do this I'm also white)
> 
> ~Daqueta (KIND OF LIKE BARBEQUE BC I'M A SUBURBAN DAD)


	38. now sit the fuck down

This isn’t Gerard’s van, for this place reeks of a famished environment rather than fast food bags and faltering air fresheners, and while it’s an improvement from that dingy place, I’m even more confused about my location than I was in the vehicle.

Capturing the details has always been my strength, though, and as I glance around the shimmering room, there is a whole array of things that could either heal me or kill me, so maybe I shouldn’t have entered this profession so willingly, but it’s nevertheless useful to know what surrounds you.

A cart as blank as the rest of the room waits in the corner for its employment, a plethora of tools boasting about how they’ll paint incisions into my skin and turn me inside out like I’m in a clothing production factory, every pint of blood just a petty casualty to their forces.

I shouldn’t be thinking about gore while I’m in a place such as this, more specifically a place whose whereabouts are unknown, because I’ve already passed out recently, and I don’t need to do so again, as it might entail consequences even worse than before, and that might not be such a bad thing, but I don’t want to wake up in a place such as this again with no recollection of where I am.

Yet I’ve never been so skilled at pushing thoughts from my mind, so I find myself indulging in the horrors of grime and blood and everything in between, the sensation posing as something a teenager encounters to feel falsely empowered, but nothing can last forever, and I find myself becoming bored with the replicated angst.

I move on to the blinds and windows, one blocking the other and further blocking me from seeing outside of it and gathering clues as to where I am and why I’m here, and though it’s an inanimate object, I still shun it for being such an obstruction to my inferences.

The only sounds I hear are hushed behind a closed door that I can’t transport myself to open effectively, a litany of shouting and business work and ugly sobbing at the loss of something whom I don’t understand just as I don’t understand this area, and those noises trigger me to do something about the sorrows cutting through people outside, but I can’t do anything.

And perhaps worst of all, cords atrophy my skin until all I see is a forest, and to other people it’s a normal procedure and the wires aren’t that abundant, but with someone like me, someone who has never been inducted into a hospital, even one cord is enough to make me explode in fear of being chained to them forever.

The snapping of the door knob hurries me from my autopsy of the room, though I’m probably the one to be autopsied during this visit, and the implacable silence is vanquished.

“Pete?”

Alternatively, the person that steps through is not the beanie-clad Pete Wentz for whom I was hoping, but a woman shining with a smile and a white lab coat with a clipboard holstered by her chest like a gun that she’ll utilize if I’m not compliant. “Actually, I’m Dr. Elisa Yao, and I’ll be taking care of you during your stay.”

My stay? That phrase is most correlated to hotels, but hotels don’t supply razors and knives to their guests while tethering them to an extremely solid bed across from a tiny television that perhaps suggests indoctrination through media, and even this woman’s title as a doctor doesn’t fit with the setting of a hotel, so where is it that I’m staying? Definitely not a resort with these murky conditions.

“Um, hi,” I greet, sidetracked by something other than her faulty answer. “Do you happen to know where I am?”

Elisa angles her head in a farce dialect, hyperbolizing the extent at which she’s appalled by my stupidity. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“I’d just like to be sure.”

“I suppose seizure patients are typically confounded,” Elisa mutters in the shallows of her breath, then looking back up at me as if I hadn’t heard everything. “You’re in a hospital.”

“So you’re saying I had a seizure?” I fidget in my restraints, suddenly on guard, and the doctor expeditiously attends to me to make sure I don’t hurt myself again.

“Don’t worry” — she surveys the clipboard to make certain that she knows my name — “Patrick. The person is unaware that they’re experiencing a seizure while it’s occurring.”

“Isn’t that terrifying?”

Elisa’s brow tendus onto her forehead, a sort of challenging stance. “You tell me.”

“I guess it was,” I grant. “I was thrashing all around, and I could have injured someone because of that — luckily, I didn’t, but I could’ve. Everything was blurry yet flashing at the same time, and weird sensations shot through me, sensations I have never witnessed before. Then I passed out, and that was blissful for me but not so much for my friends, so maybe I was selfish about that.”

“Patrick, you’re not selfish.” Elisa’s hand rests on the edge of the bed in some distant display of affection that I wish would go away along with these bland quarters. “If I were having a seizure, I would want to escape it, too.”

“Yeah, but my friends were so scared for me, if I would survive.”

The woman pats the bed again, monotonous and repetitive and terribly annoying. “They’ve been notified that you’re okay.”

Upon her response, I tilt my body upward on instinct of speeding through the hallway to exhume them, but I realize my mistake and recline slowly. “Then where are they?”

“They’re sitting in the lobby until someone lets them in.”

“May I see them?” I inquire eagerly.

“Sure, but I can only bring in one at a time. I’ll choose randomly so you won’t stress about decisions.”

Stress is what brought this seizure upon me, and stress is what’s going to bring another, but it’s not like I get stressed over superficial things such as who visits me in the hospital room first, primarily because they’ll no doubt all get a chance to do so at some time. Dallon is the only potential flame that could burn me, but he most likely won’t volunteer to hover under any doctor’s view, considering his cigarette addiction and obvious health problems because of it, so with that out of the way, there’s really nothing that could stress me out.

Once Elisa exits the room to select a candidate to venture into my hospital chamber, the overwhelming urge to flee drowns me in mischief, but before I tear the cords away from me, I come to my senses and calm myself with the same breathing technique that Pete taught me when we first met.

The room has settled into the same boringness it was in when I first woke here, caking motionlessness all over me as I stare at the wall for no reason other than to occupy myself with something that I can think about, and this tedium is perpetuated until the door swings open with a new guest strapped to Elisa’s side.

I am blessed, for the new person is not Dallon, but the absolute best variable for soothing my concerns: Pete.

Winning two identical smiles from Pete and me, Elisa sets her limbs on her hips in triumph for choosing the correct person to enter into the room and make sure that I’m all right, and her triumph expands at the sight of Pete so near to me all of the sudden.

“Patrick, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself? Are you going to need more medication?” Each question is peppered with a kiss to the pallid terrain of my skin, and that’s where Elisa is bursting with triumph.

“You sound like a grieving housewife,” I giggle as my speech labors to fortify itself against the route of Pete’s kisses. “I’m fine.”

“You two are so adorable!” Elisa squeals, almost dropping her clipboard but catching it at the last second to squeal some more.

A blush mollifies my complexion, ordering me to draw in my body to appear smaller and more innocent so as to not seem too daring against the woman, as if it’s my fault what she said. This routine has become like lethargy of a mundane compression, but it’s necessary to feel as though I reign over myself, even if that reign commands the squeezing of my bones.

Unnerved by Elisa’s comment, Pete disregards it to palm me a plastic container with a crimson-stained cupcake primped inside. “Dallon wanted me to give this to you when Dr. Yao brought me here. He figured you deserved a Christmas treat.”

Dallon? No, Pete must be mistaken. Dallon doesn’t do these kinds of things for people, especially not me. Pete’s just claiming that Dallon bought it when it was him, right? People do that to make others look good, so that must be the case. You don’t receive presents from people you hate unless it’s sabotage in some way, whether it’s Dallon maligning me or attempting to persuade my favor towards him.

I definitely won’t suppress myself, so I only thank Pete for his and Dallon’s thoughtfulness and vow never to be poisoned by the dessert.

I do not belong to Dallon Weekes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: so the seizure is where I was going with this, but the last part makes no sense and is shit
> 
> current vibe: when I told myself I was going to sleep at nine o'clock but stayed up until eleven to outline a Brallon fic
> 
> ~Dacooties


	39. sin

“Patrick, you have a visitor.” Elisa’s pigmentation sheens with elation, masking the apparent visitor behind the door to amass my own fervor.

Only moments earlier I had been enjoying a compelling novel about life in the seventeen hundreds on a mountain not much different from the one on which the Caribou cottage lies, with the plot development so gripping that its verisimilitude could be interchangeable with my real life, and it offers a more colorful approach to the dull actuality of this hospital room that I don’t want to release for a visitor that I see every day.

Because Dallon never got his chance to frequent me, he’s probably making his move right now without the memory that I behold his sapphire eyes very often, and that I hate it all the same. Being a regular at someone’s party of existence doesn’t mean that you’re welcomed, but Dallon is egotistic and stubborn, so nothing is ever straight in his mind, chiefly with me.

Dallon, however, isn’t the one that slides through the door, and I suppose I now have to give him credit for knowing his boundaries, even barely, though part of that donation resides in the fact that the person standing in my room is even worse of a human being than he is.

So much for not getting stressed out by visitors.

“Patrick!” the woman exclaims, and if this were any other person, they would be fraught with motherly love, but she does not love me enough to be my mother, and I do not love her enough to be her son.

“I’ll leave you two alone.” Elisa winks, shutting the door and neglecting the signal of begging in my body language.

Immediately after she leaves, my intentions are wholly political once discarding my apprehension with the idea that no one will help me anyway. “Why are you here?”

“I’m your mother,” the woman reiterates, overexaggerated fibers of anger plowing through her words, if only quietly in the cognizance that anxiety will produce another seizure, and the payment is already growing too large (it’s not like she cares about my safety).

“Only because disowning me would get you in trouble.”

“Why would I travel all the way from New Jersey if I weren’t your mother?”

I pick at my nails phlegmatically, enraging anyone who observes my caustic actions. “So you could pay the medical bills in person.”

“You know, Dr. Saporta is helping me with bills,” my so-called mother digresses, tone bouncier when it shouldn’t be, when it should be far from the clouds and far from me.

I rebound from my nails, daunted. “Why the hell would he do that?”

The woman encloses herself in sheepishness, reminiscent of a school girl with a crush on some sexist kid in her history class. “Because we’re dating now.”

Part of me wants to laugh, but that would be inappropriate, although who really gives a shit anymore? My mother was the one who told me to be socially acceptable, and while I may have acquired some friends because of it, Pete Wentz is the only one that I love, and I’ll always have social anxiety to screw me over no matter how many friends I keep.

“You’re, like, fifty, and the last time I checked, you were still lamenting over Dad.”

Tears corroborate the woman’s emotions, conquering her elocution as well, but I’m not even sorry after everything she’s done. “I’ve gone through the five stages of grief, and it’s time to acknowledge the truth that he’s not coming back, that I can move on with my life and not waste my time with him, rather waste my time with Gabe, and you just have to understand that.”

First of all, this lady referred to my fucking psychologist, who is always about being professional with the use of his formal title, as Gabe, which is a nickname for Gabriel and goes against everything her new boyfriend believes in, so that leads me to question why the hell they thought they were compatible in the first place.

Yeah, calling people names doesn’t decree whether or not they’re a match, but it’s odd how fluid Dr. Saporta is about this when I’ve only ever been able to address him with his title. In fact, I only recently unearthed his real name (Gabriel on the material I found) and was thoroughly disappointed at the result. Someone like him shouldn’t be named Gabe, unless Gabe is some gross nickname my mother has for him, in which case I’m out of this tacky relationship and will live in the woods with Frank to make me sandwiches.

Honestly, we’d all have a good time in the forest, and as implausible as it sounds, life is so much more peaceful and serene in a setting like that, opposite of the bustling city life of the Caribou town and the vaguely murderous aura of Newark.

Until I can retreat from my mother’s custody, I’ll be forever stuck in the cycle of human life, which now includes Dr. Gabriel Saporta and exhibits nothing worthwhile for my future, and though Pete will be there, he’s an interval amidst a majority of suffering, and if that’s what I have going for me, I’m not surrendering.

“I don’t want to understand, lady.”

“Patrick, don’t be obstinate,” the woman groans in distaste, hands slamming through the air without the stomping feet to accompany them. “You know, you’re such a brat!”

A mixture of spite and woe sterilizes any source of sensibility, and my insides rattle with candid evil towards the woman who purports to love me but is the farthest person away from that ideal. I want to whine about this situation, about how fair my mother is being, and I don’t care if it’s childlike, so I do it anyway and only stop at the notice of my doctor.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Elisa interjects, tumbling through the door and into the room. “I heard screaming, and it’s not healthy for the patient to undergo large amounts of stress.”

“Excuse _me_ —” my mother’s phrase is sliced by Elisa’s authoritative order as she’s pushed out the door by fiat of the hospital’s rules, and my doctor yelps a brief “I’m sorry, ma’am, but this is hospital procedure” before permanently sealing the aperture.

Minutes later, rapping palliates the wooden structure of the door, and the doctor shrieks at the comprehension that it’s my mother, back at it again with her problematic opinions.

“Mrs. Stump, please stop,” Elisa shouts while nevertheless allowing the opening to be unscrewed from its hinges, but she is instantaneously taken back by the man paused behind the door, feline features anathemized by constant fretting to the point of investigating me himself.

For some reason, Gerard is out of breath, maybe because he’s been increasingly anxious, maybe because he sprinted down the hall to get here so quickly, and the crook of his hipster frames displays this as he points to a vanished figure down the hall. “Patrick, was that your mom?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Who is this?” Elisa inquires, intrigued by my admittedly handsome friend as she not so subtlety creeps towards him.

“Gerard Way,” he responds with a flirtatious grin. His style of introduction has been misleading numerous times, yet he continues to perpetuate it without shame, and he hasn’t learned from the instances where people were a tad too gullible for it. He’s a people pleaser, I guess, and he gives no fucks about the consequences.

Elisa nods like the women from the book I was reading before my mother burst in and fucking ruined my life, a graceful and calculated bow. “Nice to meet you.”

“Anyway.” Gerard pivots towards me, latent ashes of damage anathetizing my doctor, and claps officially. “Pete was burned to shit without you.”

I chuckle genuinely, marking the first anecdote since I was admitted into this hospital. “Glad to know he’s faithful.”

“I think he’s by the vending machines if you want to talk to him.” Gerard’s brows are gentrified in fresh prospect, gesturing once more out into the hallway.

I glance over to Elisa for permission. “May I?”

Elisa debates it for a few seconds, then relenting. “Sure, just try not to stress yourself out while you’re at it.”

I don’t contemplate why she’s so concerned about me getting stressed out (using those two words very frequently), as she’d possibly relinquish my freedom to yet another hour of boring cartoons with slapstick humor for the masses, which I’ve hated since a child and would get me more worked up, so I only release myself through the door to expose my boyfriend.

The hall is packed with busy doctors and nurses, buzzing about their daily lives of saving the public and feeling guilty when they can’t (a horror if you ask me), and after I unwittingly crash into a couple of them, the sight of Pete is blurring into the horizon and is the only thing on which I can focus.

“Pete!” I yell, joyous to see his figure looting a bag of animal crackers near the vending machines as I swing my arms around him and lure the man closer to me.

He laughs while I tug at his neck, then scaling his height in a straddle without the fear that he’ll drop me. “Hey, buddy! Are you doing okay?”

“My mom came and told me that she’s dating my psychologist, but other than that, I’m in good shape.” My voice is as pleasant as I’ve heard it, atypical for the circumstances in which I’m legitimately suffocating, and the avidity wanders to my hands, scrunching Pete’s misty shirt in a fist that broadcasts that I am, in fact, scared of falling.

“Well that’s absolute shit.”

My nose furls, inviting the strawberry fields into my lungs. “Having you here makes it better.”

“Patrick, having _you_ here makes _everything_ better.” And in hosting butterfly lashes and doe eyes, Pete’s lips cast a shadow over mine and promise to never let me go, so I believe him, because I am hopelessly in love with a silent vow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: when you've got excess cunts in your story so you ship them together
> 
> current vibe: me taking a screenshot of when I got to 66666 words on this story (I also did this for my other book, Dove)
> 
> ~Dakainta


	40. am I a twink

I awake not to a doctor checking in on me by adjusting some path of wires to fit better on my skin, but the lilypad of lips on my forehead that converts to an epidemic.

Groaning, I shift in my bed, still caped in a black scene to rest myself. "Do they have dogs in this hospital?" I joke, half playfully and half seriously, because I haven't had the faintest clue what's going on for the past week, and an intrusive species is now attacking me, so the difference between a human and a dog is nearly indistinguishable.

"Patrick, I have some good news for you," a voice burbles, sluggishly shaking me awake when I don't react to more kisses on the nose, only swat them away.

I've become desensitized to what people call good news, because I'm either really indifferent to everything or ready to fucking shoot myself, so good news doesn't belong on the spectrum of metaphorical hell, but that doesn't mean other people can't enjoy the pleasurable experiences of life (though I have no idea how Pete would judge himself worthy of that scale), so good news is good news for them and most likely not for me, but if they're happy, that's the important thing.

Ever since I met Pete, I've wanted him to be happy, even if that meant I wasn't, and the voice that composes a love song in my ear is the one who doesn't need a love song for me to cherish him, so I figure we both got the lucky draw and trapped the universe in a loophole.

If loving me makes Pete happy, then anything that would make me less attractive to him would be reversing his fate and isn't viable in the rules of this labyrinthine game that we're unintentionally a part of, so I'm practically untouchable to the devil of this circus.

With that, I continue to lather the melody of Pete's voice over me and refuse anything else, even when he's beseeching me to listen to him, because each time I speak is a cessation to his own tune.

So I refuse to sever my lids' devoted connection to each other, rather stringing out a wordless and groggy "Mhm?"

"You've been discharged."

That refusing attitude has gone on for long enough, yeah? As a solution, I do indeed disjoin my lids to behold a glowing Pete Wentz and mimic his radiance for myself. "Really? I'm out of this place?"

A smile mitigates his posture as it permeates every piece of him and illuminates the already blinding room. "Yep, we got the report from Elisa this morning, but I just wanted to give you time to sleep before I told you. The past few days have been hectic."

"Clearly." I push myself up to discover the absence of all the cords and wires drinking my blood, and my clothes have been piled on the end of my bed for me to change back into. "Can you turn around please?"

Pete nods willingly, recognizing my wish of getting dressed and rocking back and forth as I do so.

I've grown accustomed to the ugly hospital gown, but it provides me with a sort of freedom that I don't like to wear. Being enclosed in tight pants and tucked shirts is how I can be positive that I don't just fucking fly away or something, so snuggling into my button down and skinny jeans is the best sensation in the world (or at least the safest).

It took a few hours to acclimate to the hospital gown, but promptly after my regular clothing envelops me, I'm back to normal, like this is where I need to be. This might be correlated to the notion that I'm hostile towards unfamiliar environments for fear of being destroyed by things I never weighed properly, and I've been trudging through the maxim that proclaims it's better to be safe than sorry.

"Are you ready, Patrick?" Pete asks, back still turned to me in a value of my privacy, and I respond by sporting his fingers in mine as a fashion.

"Thanks for staying with me," I murmur while walking past the same doctors and nurses I approached (and sometimes rolled into) yesterday, though our course is a slow and steady gait meant to help rather than harm like I did previously.

Pete bumps into me whimsically, and we teeter back and forth in attempting to balance ourselves after the brief ordeal. "Yeah, of course."

We're greeted in the lobby by a festive party of balloons and chocolates and flowers, beaming cheeks habituating the parched area as they chirp for me to join them in their cheer that thrives in the fact that I'm surviving this very moment.

"Patrick!" Lindsey warbles, constricting me like the strawberry candy grandma that she definitely is. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

Gerard surrounds me as if he's Lindsey's aging husband (I get that dynamic from them often, mostly because one of them is a mother and one of them is immature like lots of husbands), keeping his distance so as to not overwhelm me.

I'm leaked from Lindsey's clutch finally in order to make way for an all too zealous Frank Iero, who clogs my airways more so than the prior woman did, and suddenly I want Lindsey back.

Frank then also absolves me of my bonds, and I anticipate another guest to my hold until I realize that the only person who has submitted themselves is Dallon — with Brendon and Ryan struggling to collect the chocolates that pommeled the floor after they got a bit too excited for my return — but my attacker never rises to advance. Perhaps he knows his boundaries more than I gave him credit for.

That doesn't stop him from staring me down, and the commune between is far too awkward for my taste, but the flamboyant Brendon is the only one that can save me after abandoning Ryan to clean up the remainder of the chocolates, suspending me in the air like I'm a baby or something just as weird and kinky.

Fostering a monotone, I comment, "Oh, you're back."

"Are you not just bubbling to see me?" Brendon sprinkles his phrase with a tighter squeeze than ever, remaining to hold me in the air while my friends watch with timid expressions.

"Bren, leave him alone," Ryan chuckles, a film over his tone and a hand over Brendon's quaking shoulder.

"Whatever." Brendon drops me to the floor without a warning, and Pete rushes to equalize my feet so that I don't have to invest in another trip to the hospital.

I vocalize a quick thanks before my doctor converges on me with a simpering aura corralling her. "I'm sorry about your mom yesterday," she apologizes, an unnecessary sentence meant to console me but only encloses her in the belief that it was her fault.

"It's nothing." Jogging a hand through my hair, it masquerades as a distraction from yesterday's harrowing events — to think Dr. Saporta could become my new father.

Pete observes from his spot in one of the chairs, prepared to move if he ensnares anything suspicious. Does he even trust me anymore? I'm wallowing in _his_ love, not Elisa's.

"Well anyway...thanks for being so patient." Throttling her extremities, she leaps into an embrace (non-consensual at that), swiping my delicate limb while she's at it.

Pete jerks in his seat, and I can't decide whether it's because this stranger is hugging me or because he noticed her touching my arm, and I hope the latter, as I've never considered Pete to be petty enough to be bothered when I interact with people other than him, but he's looking out for me either way, and I should be, too.

I should be noting upon the tingling writhing inside me as torsion swamps my arm, but it burns too much for me to form coherent thoughts about it, about this hell in which I'm unfortunately living, and all I understand is that Elisa may as well be Dallon in his cottage two years ago, and I may as well be dying.

Don't make a scene out of this. If you do, Elisa will hate you forever and kill you the next time you wind up in this hospital with an injury even more fatal than a first time seizure. I'm so self-centered, hogging all of people's attention, and conducting an outburst will just prove this opinion for the worst.

So as an alternate resolve, I endure the rest of the hug and reverberate against Pete's torso after it's done (though languidly, so Elisa doesn't suspect anything), and the itch breeds under my skin until hydrogen peroxide is more of a savior to me than Pete, and yes, it's shameful to say so, but my compulsions have always been a first in my mind, and as much as I love Pete, he can't replace what's been grounded for two years.

He's trying, though, with the thoughts he projects into my hair as his chin partially muzzles them. "Are you okay?"

I don't really give a shit anymore if that's the most frequently asked question given to me, because the answer is always the same in my head and varying in my actual words, so resounding it has morphed into second nature.

"Perfect." My timbre is the shuddering of doors during a storm of hydrogen peroxide that I'm sheltered against because I'm told it's safe, but I want to get out, want to dance in the acid rain, want to be blinded by the very thing tasked with protecting me, and most of all, I want to feel safe out of my own childish accord.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: how did I manage to extend this chapter (((because word counts are my shit)))
> 
> current vibe: how Aaron says "motherfucker I'll be back from the dead soon" in Hollow Moon by AWOLNATION
> 
> ~Dakatie


	41. these titles are like panic songs

"Where is it?" I shriek, sorting through the piles of clothing and useless trinkets in my bag that I hoard anyway. "Where did it go?"

I wouldn't make a scene about hydrogen peroxide at the hospital, but this isn't the hospital, now is it? Just because I made a promise doesn't mean that I'm not fighting against the leash that holds me to it, but that doesn't really concern me now, because I'm out of the hospital and can make as many scenes as I'd like.

So I do, and I perform them without remorse, but they're emerging on the opposite side of fire, and my peroxide is still nowhere to be seen.

"Are you looking for this?" a mysterious figure taunts, and as I pivot to face him, it's my own friend, the feline man with whom I share the residency of this cottage.

"Yes, and may I have it back?" I pounce to capture it for myself, but Gerard dangles it farther away from me, expecting an explanation.

A challenging stance accents the man's entire demeanor, frightening me if anything. "Depends. What are you using it for?"

Put off my Gerard's new personality, I wring my bones under the milky terrain of my flesh and subdue my volume. "None of your business."

"It _is_ my business, because I don't want you hurting yourself." This sentence is unwaveringly on the kinder end of the line from what Gerard said earlier, but even so, this kind of authority is unnerving and the thing I hate the most.

"It's not your job to guard me."

"As your friend, it very much is," Gerard contradicts, grip cloaking the bottle of hydrogen peroxide in suffocation.

"Just give it back." I reach for the liquid, but Gerard once again thrusts it away, continuing to pry.

"What do you need it for?"

"Why do you care?" I scream, arms inverting gravity.

"I'm your friend!" Gerard responds with just the same intensity.

Finally my tone slopes downward, but spite still coerces my speech. "Not if you're doing shit like this."

Gerard's brows stale with equal portions of anger and chagrin, genuinely oblivious to what's happening in my sorry little head. "Shit like defending you against yourself?"

Hysterics trickle from my lungs, a display of fireworks with the utmost autoschediasm of insanity. "Why do you always assume that I'm going to fucking kill myself all the time?"

"Because you always look as though you're just on the edge." And from a reason I want to slap Gerard for, his face feathers in a pinnate bouquet at the reminder of my apparent suicidal tendencies that have never appeared until Gerard just now suggested them.

"Doing this will push me off," I snarl, a threat that holds more meaning than anything I've ever said, because I've been ready to jump since the day I first employed the hydrogen peroxide as the metaphorical version of suicide.

"Doing this will bring you back."

Groaning and never accepting defeat, I storm out the door, jostling Gerard on the way out so that he thoroughly comprehends that I'm never companions with someone who deprives me of my basic human needs, and just because other humans don't need the same things as I do doesn't mean that they're not essential to me.

My goal was to sashay right out of this stupid fucking house for a while, or at least until I cool down, but those plans are foiled right when the touch I was trying to prevent trails back to me and squanders anything I ever worked towards.

"Don't be so indignant, Patrick," the man heeds, teeth herded to lock with each other and convey more levels of spleen than I had previously expressed.

"Dallon, what are you doing?" Gerard demands, adhering to the threshold in the event that he'll have to arrest me from this criminal.

"I'll continue this chat with him." My attacker squints at me like I'm the one to do something wrong, when all I aspired to achieve was pour the peroxide over me, the peroxide that he made me need. "Don't worry, Gerard."

As I'm led down the hall, a new motive supplants my older one, announcing that I should pocket a dash of clemency for my own stores. "Let me go, rat ass."

"Just come with me," Dallon circumlocutes, pumping steamy carbon dioxide into my ear from a sharp tongue.

My lungs are domiciliated by the apprehension from not knowing where we're headed, but the nervousness is then stung by the sight of Dallon turning the knob (only left, not right) to the supply closet.

"Why are we going in here?" I interrogate, skeptical of my surroundings as the lightbulb colors the room to reveal a sundry of random items.

Nothing advantageous throbs in here, if we're not counting the graveyards of paper towels, napkins, disinfecting wipes, and raggedy mops, but my old friend appears to lurk on the inside of these matters.

Rather than a verbal reply, Dallon rewards me for my enterprise with a fresh bottle of hydrogen peroxide that I never knew to be stocked in the closet — I should pen a mental mark of that. "Go ahead," he directs, nodding at the bottle trembling in my hand.

To balance myself, I position my back so that it's depending on the wall below a shelf, and Dallon joins me, much to my discomfort.

"Just try not to get any on my gloves," the man includes to his prior statement of permission while he observes me carefully as I recycle the cap to the floor.

Fixed on my actions with just as much fascination as he has, I conclude that it's time to decode the cryptic Dallon. "Why do you wear those anyway?"

"I don't want to corrupt anything with my germs." His vision now centers on his hands as he gouges them through the anxiety of this situation where he's suddenly the one being crushed, but I'm not regretting anything. "Not like I corrupted you."

I admit to my fallacy. I _am_ regretting something, but I don't know what. Maybe it's the apatetic way his sapphire eyes are whipped with dust until they're dull stones without any of the coquettish gleam they used to hoist, mutated until they're able to be smoldered in the death of dubiety, and that agitates me, because there was once a time where he deserved so much more than this, and the entelechy that he still does is the most unsettling thing out of all this shit.

With or without impulsion (I'll let the ramifications decide), I'm nearer to Dallon than I was, the charity of a newborn thawing the ice of my eyes. "You wear them because of me?"

"Well you're doused in peroxide because of _me_ , so maybe it's an accidental favor," Dallon laughs aridly, underlining his voice with the heartbreak of an ambition chipping away into nothing.

I curl in dejection, though I shouldn't. "You sound far too amenable about wearing those gloves."

"That's because I'd be struck by my own brain if I took them off."

I halt from my positon of buttering my arm in a chemical that gives more fucks than I do to soften myself for a man I never deemed sentimental enough to say something like this after what we did two years ago, and I want to proceed, but I don't, because the truth is that I can't.

I once loved Dallon Weekes, and I know that it's far away — I think about it often — but maybe it isn't, or at least not as far away as I conceived. We're similar in the manner that we're contriving plans to stay alive with the same things that people claim to be killing us, and if we're the only ones who disagree, we could be quite the proactive team.

"Are you saying...?"

"Yep," Dallon bemoans. "Obsessive-compulsive disorder, just like you."

Gesturing all around with no direction, I stammer, "But at the club you were being so ignorant about it."

The man shrugs. "We do odd things to hide ourselves."

I clasp Dallon's hands in my own, exploring the landscape of coal that furrows in some places, prolongs in others, and murders me with each second. "Except you're literally hiding yourself."

Beholding me for a few moments in the radiance of solitude, Dallon begins to pluck the fabric from his fingers one by one until his hands are bare — vulnerable — and it's the purest form of nudity that one can seek, because his heart has been stripped of its misgivings and is still beating as it scraps the fear of damnation. Then, with a bow of the head, Dallon's coating burns the barrier between us, and we're touching like those shitty diagnostic meetings never affected us at all.

My skin still sweats the hydrogen peroxide that I had applied only minutes before, but Dallon doesn't seem to be stirred by it, and somehow neither am I, because the substance never did much for me, and I'm basically just as liable as he is.

Liability can spur complications, though, but nothing is as complicated as Dallon yearning for my lips on his and actually earning it, and it yet becomes even more complicated when I'm enthusiastic about it, too.

I'm beginning to hate myself — hate myself for liking Dallon so close to me, hate myself for being in this closet with him, hate myself for betraying Pete because I can't control myself — and it's unable to be fixed from where I see it. Though this isn't the genesis of this adversity, it's blooming again, and it's evolving at an alarming rate.

Yet the phenomenon is so stunning that no one can disregard it. Not even me, who has hated Dallon Weekes since he created the thing that we're both cowering at right now, but as I said, this is complicated.

Perhaps the most complicated part of all of this, however, is when Pete happens to stumble across it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: lmao bye
> 
> imagine if you had to wait a week for the next chapter like you have to do for some authors lol
> 
> current vibe: when my friend told me that Gerard Way met Misha Collins and I screamed for three years
> 
> ~Dakisha


	42. get a bowl cut

"I-I just came in to get paper towels for Lindsey," Pete stutters, immobilized by the scene he's unluckily witnessing.

Dallon somehow takes no blame for this, only watches my reaction as if he isn't a part of the consequences, but he's a half of it just as I am, and he'd better be ready to explain.

Without so much as a glance at Dallon, I levitate and intersperse my fingers onto Pete's, dragging us further into the hallway as I utter a simple command. "Get me out of here."

Pete, trusting me throughout the turmoil of this bumpy relationship, follows me down the corridor until we plop down on the bed of his room and I prepare for my delivery.

"You don't need to elucidate anything, Patrick," he assures, stopping me. "I just want to understand why you would do this if you hate Dallon."

Avoiding the question directly, I ponder, "Do you recall when you told me to touch my arm and see how it felt?"

Pete nods slowly, unsure of where this is going from here.

"Well now it's like that touch doesn't even matter anymore," I complete. "Because Dallon touched my arm, and he should be the worst of all people, but it didn't feel like anything, and I—"

Upon seeing the first of many tears emphasizing my melancholy, Pete swarms me and slithers his embrace over the top of my frail body in a protection of something special he's convinced I possess. "Patrick, why should Dallon be the worst of all people to touch your arm?"

"B-b-because..." I crease myself into Pete's chest in order to discover a stable place to channel my message. "Because he was the one who did it." I had predicted a steadfast response after wrestling the words to be torn out from my queue one by one, but all Pete does is become weaker than me at the news I had spent so long shielding from the world.

"Patrick" is his raspy feedback, and he is in need of a home more so than I am, so I allow myself to become a provision for him.

Gluing Pete's hands to mine once the tables have fully flipped, I study each nick and bump on his bones and tendons and pigmentation and everything that is wholly his. "Dallon James Weekes attacked me two years ago, and ever since then, I have been soaking myself with hydrogen peroxide and warding myself against the public, because that was the only secure thing I could describe when I was first assailed by the ambivalence of this anecdote."

"Why haven't you told someone about this?"

"I'm telling you," I contend with a pitiful shrug.

"And I'll tell Gerard." Pete elevates to do just that, but I pause his activities with a single look of desperation.

"Please don't."

Pete's agitation is at its horrible birth, and he taps his foot along to its hell-bound chorus. "Why not?"

"I'm doing better, and making my attack common knowledge isn't going to help me further." Abruptly then, my lips click their heels with an idea. "I know what will, though. Would you like to replace those bad memories with good ones?"

Pete's cognizant of what I intend to do, ink skidding over his sides as his shirt is drawn from him and bundled on the floor by his own force. "Are you sure you want to do this?" my friend asks, a bit nervous himself.

For the first time in two years, I'm equipped to start an optimistic relationship with someone new, so I agree to the conditions. "Positive."

Pete exhales a shaky river and manumits my shirt from me so that we're both showcasing our varying torsos, and Pete's response isn't nearly what I had foreseen. "Aww, you're so adorable!" is his squeak, Hudson River irises blithe with what they're perceiving.

"I'm unhealthily underweight, Pete," I counter, almost covering myself up with the comforter but refraining from it once reminding myself what the purpose of this excursion is. "I'm far from adorable."

Pete revokes my statement, weeding out the insecurities from my mouth with an abbreviated kiss. "No, just look at your cute little tummy!"

Through the cage of tickling, I am challenged to expel a nearly ruthless "don't call it a tummy," but Pete is passive to my desires.

"If you won't listen, I'm going to narrate a story for you," Pete elects, tone suddenly somber yet bittersweet.

I concur with his route, flinching subtlety when my friend seeds goosebumps onto my chest with the same delicate fingers that I want to hold me every night.

Pete zooms in on his path down my chest as the Sisyphean butterflies march along with him, reciting his journey with a joyful step. "I remember when my friend and I were talking about suicide, how she didn't understand it because there's apparently always something to live for, that nothing can ever get bad enough to kill yourself, and I wanted to scream. I wanted to reprimand her. I wanted to punish her. I wanted to make her understand that she was wrong in every way, and that things got bad enough for _me_ until I was crying over piles of medicine as I slowly increased the dose, because that would surely prove her incorrect."

I hadn't suspected the course on which this story would descend, rather suspected a gleeful story intended to lift me up from the underworld I've been living in, but it must represent something meaningful to my lover, so I don't repeal his privilege of chronicling the tale.

"Contrary to popular belief, depression isn't magically solved when you do something great. Depression isn't magically solved when you're hanging out with friends. Depression isn't magically solved by forgetting about whatever it is that's making you sad, because none of us really know what that is."

Pete's right, and I hate that it has to be that way with depression, because we are all entitled to a happiness, to a happiness that doesn't come and doesn't breathe and doesn't give a shit about people like us, even when it should, because we've suffered through hell and busted lungs just to find that we are endowed something that is off taking its leisure time without reckoning that we're all waiting for it to repair itself and repair our lives and repair everything that we destroyed just to get to it, and once again we're fucked, and we're fucked really bad.

I have a story of my own that's a mirror image of what transpires all day for idiots such as myself, a story we never care to tell, tucked behind the last page of a book like a library registration pocket that no one passes their attention over, the grim version of a film that we all hope to watch but never do for fear of shuddering doors in our chests.

The event was almost biblical in a sense, with the obliteration of the familiar, with the transformation of the rivers to host cyanide, with the carnage of bodies that had so much potential for stopping this plague, but it all existed in our minds, and we were convinced that we had to kill it.

So we spoke in silence, in hushed tones, shepherding soft doe eyes poised to please the watching lexemes that had not yet been uttered, never stopping to wonder if they would ever be released with the daring flick of a tongue — just waiting to strike.

And very soon, the world began to plead, blood pouring from its mouth as it spewed out words that tore its throat, that always labored to fabricate struggle, mundane capacity, but were as illegitimate as ever.

The truth, however, is drugged with disparity, tumbled and strained until it's nothing but the gentle breeze who tucks us in at night, and that seems to be the only credibility we can seek out. We crave the childhood with which we were never blessed as our teeth turn to fangs and our quietness to hunger, and even our own soul does not recognize us before it is poisoned with black.

It seems that the world is our representative, though it promises a reform and supplies its own perverse alterations. It is nothing — nothing worthwhile, nothing real, nothing that benevolently lifts us over the clouds to return to our fireplaces and our homes — but we can't do a single thing about it.

We belong to the paranoia.

The absence of substance has established an authority over us, fussing and moaning over the things it can never entertain, the lively shades of yellows and blues, and it hurries us back to the tricks our minds play on us to make us sympathetic, like we're in the emergency room, and in some ways, we are — our entire existence is a clarion call for death.

The commander of our stability twists and mutilates our words and hands them back to us as if it were a balloon animal, as if we're supposed to be grateful for their depiction of suffering, and once we accept that doctrine, once the falsifications have been washed down our throats, we caress the tattered shards of glass and wait for ourselves to bleed so that we can taste our own soul and know just what kind of dangerous we are.

It's a hoax, and we believe that there is a light, but there is only impending sickness and hatred for anything that hovers over us, and that's the sole ending that preys on people like me, so I write myself a symphony of my own and harmonize with the screaming tenderness of my lover as we drown in the little chambers we've constructed for ourselves.

"But maybe she was right," Pete confesses, fingers stationed at my cadaverous hipbones as a lone tear circles the hem of my jeans. "Maybe there _is_ something to live for, and maybe it's you. Maybe it's smelling the pure scent of rain before it comes and ignoring the storm that follows. Maybe it's thrusting spears into my spine just to announce that I've survived."

And we laugh, and it's more delicious than anything we've ever devoured, almost saccharine in the realization that we never know what's real and what isn't, but we're actually doing fine on accepting the truth. We're both just intercenine wolves pillaging each other for solace, and it's somehow working.

"Depression isn't going to win me, because I know that I am not totally lost. I know that there are people out there who don't deteriorate as I do, and the disparity between that group and myself reminds me that a healthier lifestyle is attainable. I know that intolerable boredom is as fleeting as my happiness is, and I'm willing to make that sacrifice to grasp something whole. I know that I am viewing life from a distorted lens that will eventually clear to unveil a terrain where joy is abundant, and the melancholic ghosts who bear my name will have vanished."

The allegory drums on without the worry of being depleted of cassette string, Pete's fingers gripping my waist as he dives into the gulf of my neck to encase his cracking countenance in secrecy. "And perhaps it's insensitive for me to say so, and I must clarify that I'm not condemning depression for doing what it does best, but pills are only temporary, and they _will_ disappear once I swallow them all, but they could disappear just the same if I threw them into the trash."

Pete grazes my chin with the raven fringes of his locks, heat lingering so close to me that I feel the batting of his lashes on my cheeks. "That's the other option. That's the thing I will live for. And you, Patrick — you are a part of it, and I want you to say that you're willing."

And in the megalithic monument between us, my breath is a fog over my lover's as they mix, and my reply is just as warm. "I'm willing."

Willing to survive this war. Willing to love Pete Wentz. Willing to be tangled in the sheets all night with him and not give a shit about any subsequent torture, because torture is only temporarily, and it _will_ disappear.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: BOY OH BOY THIS WAS THE BEST I COULD DO BECAUSE I HATE SMUT
> 
> also this is my third chapter today
> 
> current vibe: talking about jesus and satan and stuff despite being an atheist
> 
> ~Dakillinga


	43. jesus didn't die for this

Hugging Pete’s headboard is a note whose name is unrevealed for purposes to entice the seeker, but all that’s evoked is absolute dread as he approaches.

The note is a meager sheet of notebook paper sliced into an eighth of the page and taped to the bed, and that isn’t so much to anyone who randomly glances over it, though the contents of the note are more ghastly than anyone could’ve predicted from first sight, so perhaps that serves as a dangerous trap without a proper disclaimer and is terribly life-threatening.

Pete’s fingers tuck into the note, perusing its scanty message of only a few lines, and his jaw slacks with ambivalence.

_If you value anything in your pathetic little life, you’ll stay away from the petulant child you somehow love as Patrick Stump. You’re better off without him dragging you down._

Pete decides through shaking contemplation that he’ll just disregard it like he does anything annoying and meant to spook, because chances are this is just a prank and doesn’t mean anything to anyone, for if someone were to so much as look at Patrick, they’d guess that he’s the sweetest person they’ll ever encounter in their boring lives.

Because it’s fucking true, and Pete’s been existing with that theory in his mind since day one in the Belleville Child Development Center where his soon to be boyfriend drowned in his inconsolable panic attack but Pete was there to save him, and ever since then, Pete’s been vying for Patrick’s love and has ultimately won it with ease once overlooking the turbulence they’ve confronted, but they nevertheless made it through alive, so there’s no saying that their relationship isn’t thriving.

So in that, that note doesn’t mean a thing to Pete, because it’s a falsification from the pen of a bully who has nothing better to do than slander anyone they can think of, and not even the bully matters in this situation, because he knows that he and Patrick are their own magnificent entities that just happen to flourish when together, so he parades from the room with his head held high.

Until Pete discovers another note, this time smaller to host a more laconic message, but maybe that plays no part in this, because maybe it packs more punch with yet again no warning delivered with it so that its reader will be sputtering for breath while choking on the blood of their sorrows and knowing that the accusation drafted on a paper means more than they thought because it’s fucking accurate, and they’ve understood it for a while now.

The man is tense as he stoops to collect the note’s harsh words, cognizant that this is no case of serendipity, but he proceeds anyway, though he shouldn’t.

_Just fucking kill yourself, you cunt._

He should’ve walked by it. He should’ve thrown the note away. He should’ve gone back to whatever he was doing and forgotten about it completely.

And just like the others who could’ve read this note, he knows that it’s so fucking right, and though he already wanted to kill himself, realizing that others want the same thing is just absolutely monstrous.

It’s a motive for anger.

~~~~~

His movements are slow — precise, but slow — with the weight of lead collaring him as he trudges through the hall towards the person the note resented half as much as it resented Pete, and his intentions are to be animated towards the scrap of paper, whether harshly or compliantly, and he’s not really sure which one he’s launching right now.

Pete identifies his target lounging in his bedroom with a book strewn in between his fingers as he reclines on the mattress without a worry in the world (or at least without a worry that’s flaring at the current moment — people like him are always fretting).

“Patrick, I need to talk to you,” Pete requests, ballasting his fist near the door without quite contacting it in a knock, uncertain if I’m prone to noise sensitivity.

Wary, I bend the book around my thumb and pat the bed twice to invite Pete to accompany me on it, which he does skeptically.

I had conjectured a more eager advance on me, primarily after what occurred last night and how we peeled ourselves of secrets, but from the torsion of Pete’s hands, I can conclude that nothing changed for him. That, or he’s incredibly stressed.

“You’ve been hallucinating, right?”

Pete knows that he’s christening the conversation to favor my perspective instead of his, because the truth is that he’s fucking terrified of what the note stores for him personally, and he’d prefer to discuss my many issues to avoid his own, and maybe that’s selfish, but he doesn’t give a fuck anymore, because every day is just another dive into hell as a last resort from his life not glowing with purpose anymore, and speaking about other people’s problems provides a bit of substance in a world that lacks it.

Even so, I couldn’t care less (except I kind of do), because I’ve _never_ opened up to people without some sort of emotional spark, whether that’s gloom, fear, or rage in the coating of parapraxis, and as far as I know, Pete’s doing fine and is just at it again with trying to figure me out, so I’m not revealing myself to him.

“Mind your own business please,” I command in an obvious show of passive-aggressiveness, disengaging my thumb’s location in the book to continue reading, but Pete tosses the object to the side, causing me to shiver in astonishment.

Pete raises a finger as if a scolding mother, and I set myself up for something I can fight against. “You know, your stubbornness is really getting on everyone’s nerves.”

He absolutely abhors what he’s doing, but he can’t seem to stop, because the notes have hired him as an assassin of anything pleasant we contain in our relationship, and he’s on a special contract that only breaks once we’re destroyed, so I play along and pretend like I’m on the brink of hating him.

“Good. Maybe they’ll leave me alone.”

Pete detains my arm in a feisty clench, and suddenly I don’t have to pretend anymore. “I’m always going to be here, whether you like it or not.”

“Unhand me,” I seethe through frozen teeth that inflict apnea on everywhere it can reach its grimy sins, but Pete is as stubborn as he claims I am, and he’s twirling in a misnomer.

“No.” Pete tightens the arrest. “If you say it doesn’t do anything to you when people touch your arm, then this shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Your touch is full of hate, like it was when it first happened, and I guess the only reason I felt safe last night was because neither you nor Dallon hated me.” I wrestle with my words in a ring of quaking, and Pete only views it as fuel.

A sigh burdens Pete’s elocution, making for some leeway. “I don’t hate you, Patrick, but if you’re perpetually tenacious (and not in a fruitful way), then I might.”

“If you don’t hate me, then why are you doing this?”

“You need to improve yourself, and you need to stop holding me down.” Anxiety chafes my companion’s throat as his words bubble up, and some part of me dictates that he’s remorseful, but the other part dictates that he’s too susceptible to persuasion and is doing this because he has no fucking spine.

“I don’t need to do anything,” I bark, weaker than ever at the needles on my arm. “Please just let me go.”

A tragedy of pain blemishes Pete’s skin, pleading for something to grasp onto. “Patrick, I love you, but—”

I shake my head deliberately, calculating just how delusional my friend is. “You don’t love me at all.”

At my piercing comment, Pete’s grip is reduced just enough for me to slip away and scuttle down the hall and into the same supply closet that Dallon kissed me in, where I can pour the mistakes from my lungs in clouds of sobbing that are audible from the entire house, but it’s only Lindsey who comes to investigate.

“Patrick?” she peeps, somewhat smudged by the barrier of the door as she portrays a shy mouse that’s scared I’ll hurt her. When was that misconception inaugurated? Why do my friends fear me?

“I wonder how often you’ve seen me cry,” I laugh through tears, but Lindsey only reposes with me in an embrace and doesn’t respond to that question, because the answer isn’t significant to her.

The woman squeezes me into her motherly comfort, hushing herself so that this exchange is reminiscent of a lullabye. “You know that I love you, right?”

“Pete sure doesn’t.”

“Well fuck Pete!” she exclaims, giggling soon after from the absurdity of this situation that requires us to be huddled in a supply closet with emotions drizzling onto our rationality. “He might’ve been in a bad mood, but he is helplessly in love with you. I’ve seen it.”

I want to tell her that his bad moods take everyone down with him, that you wind up in a place you never thought you could be, that you’re fucked along with him, but I stay silent like I’ve been doing for a while and convince myself that it’s nothing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: lmao from now on, shit gets real
> 
> you've been warned
> 
> current vibe: when my friend bought that episode app and told me everything that she was doing on it (okay it's like rly weird)
> 
> ~Nahkota


	44. i fucjkking hhyte fnrkn ioereo

“Patrick, why were you screaming?” A haggard Frank Iero, with pitch hair riding the sea and boxers corroding his legs, leans in the threshold, banishing the waste from his tear ducts with the insides of his fist as he anticipates my reply as to why I woke him up at one o’clock in the morning with my uncontrollable shrieking.

Winnowing the comforter between my fingers as the last stable thing I can hold onto, nervousness distorts my speech. “I-I had a nightmare.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Why would I want to talk about a nightmare that devastated my cooperation with reality in a matter of a few hours? Why would I want to talk about hands grabbing me from every direction with the same black gloves that have appeared everywhere? Why would I want to talk about glancing up to find that the beholder of the gloves isn’t even Dallon but Pete? Why would I want to have a fucking panic attack in someone else’s embrace as they silently condole with me at a dream they don’t even understand? Why would I want to make myself so vulnerable like that when I could be slashed down so much more easily?

“I don’t know. I just…” A wave of sobbing billows through my lungs until it’s all I can manage, and Frank, recognizing my inability to do anything else, comforts me in a hug.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I feel like I owe you something, but I’m just comprised of secrets that I can’t disclose to anyone, so I’m fucking lost,” I gush like the self-pitying character in a high school drama movie that all the girls crowd around while covertly despising them.

Frank weaves an arm around my shoulders in reassurance. “You don’t owe me anything, Patrick. You’re an individual person.”

I shrug hopelessly and overdramatically, refusing to accept Frank’s law. “But you’re always so kind to people, and I treat everyone around me like shit.”

“No, Patrick, that’s me,” a figure opines from the doorway, a figure who haunted my dreams only minutes before, and I crawl deeper into the bed in fear.

The memories of my nightmare rush back vividly, baptizing me in blood and terror and everything in between, and maybe our relationship shouldn’t be as hectic as it is now, but Pete has scarred me in the span of twelve hours or less, and with something as impressive as that, I can’t resist fleeing in trepidation.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I screech, wielding the nearest pillow to me and flinging it at the man I used to call my boyfriend, and the connotations of the action are more hurtful to him than the pillow’s impact.

“I thought you two were madly in love,” Frank spectates, elasticized with glances between us in intervals. “Why do you hate each other all of the sudden?”

Pete’s vision is shackled to me while he speaks, brows leached by candid ache. “Because I made a terrible mistake.”

“The hell you did,” I mutter as I slant away from him so as to not revisit the events of my harrowing nightmare.

Frank squirms anxiously through the awkward (more so for him than for us) silence, proposing an offer as a solution to the quietness. “Should I leave you alone to, um, sort things through?”

Pete agrees before I can object to the advocacy, and I find myself barred within the version of reality in my nightmare, but this time I can’t escape by simply cutting through my lids, who happen to be as stubborn as me.

“Please go away.”

“I just want to explain,” the man pleads, begging me to address him with an unbiased approach that I haven’t utilized in years.

“Explain how much of a fucking idiot you were?” I finally snap while awarding him the unbiased approach he was beseeching me to give him.

“Yes, explain how much of a fucking idiot I was.” Pete searches for my permission before he begins, which I provide with a mere nod, and he carefully selects his phrases to start. “I was dead set on loving you, Patrick, but then…there were these notes I found in my room.”

I pretend to be disinterested, back the only thing greeting the man, but I’m actually cleaving to every word like it’ll be his last, and such is a vow in these circumstances, because you can’t really stay angry at someone who gave you everything he had, at someone you told all of your darkest secrets, at someone you cried with at a wonder as simple as the horizon, because it might be that you don’t _want_ to stay angry at someone like that, as they mean too much to you to let go as if they’re nothing, and Pete definitely isn’t just nothing.

“The first note accused you of being a bratty child who will only pull me down and stop me from achieving my personal goals, so I, of course, didn’t listen to it, because I love you very much and don’t consider you to be any of those things.” Pete’s tone then lapses into sobriety, and the tides are less jaunty than I suspected they would’ve been. “Then the second note was aimed towards me, ordering me” — Pete’s throat cracks in the epicedium of his message, and I allow him a moment to gather himself — “ordering me to kill myself.”

I could remind Pete that ordering someone to kill themselves is actually illegal, even more so if they go through with it, but I’m cognizant that what he needs is emotional support rather than a lawyer, so I contribute all that I can.

“That’s fucking awful.”

“No shit.” Pete gropes for my hands, and after flinching away, I replace them for him with the reminder of my promise for emotional support. “I guess that’s why I lashed out at you, and I was weak. I was so fucking weak, and I shouldn’t have acted the way I did, but we both know I’m an idiot, though that doesn’t make it okay, either.”

My eyes are commodious with infatuation, my heart downloaded to a new server that fits me well, a server of receptiveness, and it projects my love towards the man with me.

“So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m incredibly sorry for what I did, and I hope it won’t happen again.” Pete anxiously waits for my approval, which slams into him with the collision of my lips upon his, a fierce sonata shivering under the moonlight as it’s sheared through the blinds and deposited to our fluttering lashes.

It’s like mending ourselves over and over with more strength each time, like a web reticulated into our fluid bodies as they swish over each other in dives and bows and dips towards unexplored patches of skin and heat that rouges our cheeks, and it’s all just ecstasy drenched in stomachs colorful with more excitement than ever, and I’m enjoying every bit of it.

Pete claws at the hem of my t-shirt, raveling it an inch at a time until it pours over my head, and I do the same for him so that we’re two bare chests clashing against each other and painting the hues of a flame on each other’s skin as allegiance salivates from our arched spines and spills onto our tumbling bodies, now guarded in the sheets.

Promises sway from our mouths, promises that we intend to keep, promises that we intend to throw away, promises that we intend to forget about in five years until they’re but ruins of saudade, but in this moment we’re connoisseurs of each other’s wine, and we’re phlegmatically helpless about it all.

Butterflies hum in my bones as they metamorphose into kisses spouted from Pete’s gentle lips, meandering wherever they can discover vacancy and quilting my complexion in blooming violets and roses, and I giggle with each spring season wending across me.

Pete only toys with the area where my hipbones have been installed, drawing spirals from the tip of my pelvis to the curve of my waist and back down again until he’s decorated the entire space in vines invisible to the human perception but alluring nonetheless.

Musing on a smile that pokes out of Pete’s composure, I climb onto him and reciprocate the favor of spinning butterfly chrysalises onto his bronzed flesh — in the crook of his neck, down the swerves of his collarbones, along the blade of his jaw, everywhere that I can plant adoration, and it’s all so amazing for both parties.

Every aspect of the man clinging to me is beautiful in the light, his Black Sea tresses cascading onto my nose as I tug at his lips and snapshot each second to be welded into a scrapbook that narrates our love to those who could never understand otherwise. Leaves coil from his lashes, fanning me delicately and sailing over peroxide dust and vampiric complexions, and he performs it all so amiably.

But I can’t pretend that everything is all right with us, because it’s not, and as much as I detest lies, this one feels right enough to dismiss, but I know that it’s not partial in anything. Pete overstepped his boundaries when he shouldn’t have, and he’ll have to pay the price.

However, I’ve become skilled at acting when it’s against the law, the only real thing in this affair being the panting selling my lungs to the devil after doing something that rescinds all of my morals regarding lies with a cackling harmony, and I should be more apologetic than I am.

Sleeping in the arms of falsehood is more dangerous than you’d think, and I’ve found myself in the crossfire.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: what the fuck was this
> 
> this wasn't supposed to happen lmao
> 
> why do I go against my outline like this I need to fucghing clhill
> 
> current vibe: when I drew a young Perez Hilton bc I hate him
> 
> ~Dakhilton


	45. don't leave your albino squirrel at the park

"Pete!" Gerard hollers, rousing both of us from our deep slumber in each other's arms, then becoming quite surprised at what he's witnessing. "Oh, and Patrick, I guess."

Pete disbands Gerard's suspiciousness with a question strung in a groaning lyric, forcing himself upright. "Why are you waking us up like this?"

Gerard deliberates for a few seconds, still registering the scene where I'm in Pete's bed, but he eventually catches on with a goofy grin. "Oh, we're going fishing."

"Who thought that would be a good idea?"

"Frank, and he was pretty insistent on it, too, so suit up."

I roll my eyes. I thought he was only interested in sandwiches.

~~~~~

Both the wind and the persevering Pete Wentz manicure my cheeks in shades of flamingo with kisses made sharp by the extreme weather as they manage to grasp their fishing poles effectively while they dip into the frigid water in search of a creature that they'll never collect but still retain the ambition to, but ambitions are useful, I presume.

"Patrick, are you hoping to catch something?" Frank asks, leaning over while maintaining a close surveillance on his rod.

"Not really. I'll just watch."

"Are you sure?" Frank reinstates. "Fishing is really fun."

"Is that why you dragged us out here?" I jest.

No response, only a sly smirk before he returns to his activity that at least holds some significance to him but not to me, and that's why I'm so bitter about everything, though I'm performing well at seeming somewhat entertained. I never learned to fish, but I don't want to, either, judging from the monotony of it.

The boredom of this is overwhelming to the point where my feet scream at me to be rested, but I'm so stationary, just fixedly gazing into the distance, that I can't respond to my body's wishes properly. I just don't understand how people can exhume pleasure from an activity so dull as this. The main goal is to wait for a prolonged time just to discover that no fish have clung to the hook. Where's the profitable experience in that?

A slight glint in the water has my head turning its direction after breaking from my gaze towards the horizon, and my feet soon step into gear to stride to it in the only fascination I can derive from this tiresome excursion that everyone but me is somehow enjoying.

It appears to be the first fish we've encountered in the thirty minutes we've been out here, soaking in thinning patience, and it's a magnificent one at that. Its scales rage with color, and its grand size would surely earn someone a spot at whatever fair they choose to attend. I guess I love my friends enough to alert them to this beautiful animal, but Pete's already behind me before I can utter any coherent syllables other than the ones produced by shock.

"What's that?" my boyfriend inquires, deeply intrigued by the spectacle.

"I don't even know how to fish. Do you expect me to identify every animal on this planet?"

He claps a hand over my shoulder as if condescending me for an anger that is surely placed correctly, which only fuels me more. "Relax, Patrick."

"I'm not a child." I cramp my fists together, admittedly something a child would do, but I don't care, because Pete's a person who's supposed to support me no matter what, and that's the opposite of what he's doing most of the time.

"The note would disagree," Pete contradicts far too casually for this situation. "So would your mother."

Now I don't particularly care for my mother, but seeing her used as a reinforcement to Pete's argument, to an argument designed to slander me for being so fucking socially unacceptable, like it's my fault I was paired with autism, is absolute shit. In addition, Pete shouldn't be reminding himself of the notes, as one of them instructed him to kill himself, and if he's dwelling in holes such as those, that's productive for neither of us and is potentially dangerous to anyone who ever loved him.

"You know what?" I snap, addressing my companion with my teeth tied together. "Fuck you. You're being the child right now, and you know it."

Pete accosts me from the front, gathering himself so that he's all I can stare at while I speak, eliminating any barriers between us and summoning an eerie ambience to the cloudy skies. "Patrick, I think we're both overreacting, and—" Before Pete can wrap up his sentence, he's plunging into the icy waters from a careless mistake involving the fumbling of the feet, and he's slipping away faster than ever.

"Pete!" I shriek, hands covering my mouth to stifle an agonized gasp.

Immediately, Dallon is rushing to lift Pete out of the water, assisted by Gerard and Frank, but the victim is already being anointed by sickly blues and purples and may be already lost, but we aspire to save him anyway, with desperation mobilizing our actions.

Pete sputters and moans on the dock, a tremor eulogizing him while already planted in his funeral attire, because it knows that he's been claimed for death, and as much as we'd like to salvage him from the cold, only a portion of his health remains.

"Lindsey, get some fresh clothes from the house," Dallon directs, then shifting his focus towards peeling away the drenched layers from Pete's trembling body and wringing out his hair. "Patrick, don't just stand there."

"I-I—" I'm almost as shaky as Pete — anxiety is a bitch — and it's like I'm glued to the dock with nothing to detach me.

"We may hate each other, but let's put aside our differences to help someone, okay?" Dallon glares at me for a couple moments, then proceeding with his work as I lethargically move to aid him, the glue abruptly slick and fluid so that I'm free.

Lindsey is back with towels and clothes, which we hastily drape over Pete's shivering figure as one of our many labors to fix him. "His breathing is shallow, and I can barely detect his pulse," Lindsey notices.

"These are all symptoms of hypothermia," Dallon includes, movements more frantic than they had been only seconds before. "We have to get him to the hospital."

How does Dallon know so much about hypothermia? Did he take some sort of class for whatever weird reason? Why does he even give a shit about Pete when he's the one obstructing the path to me? Why am I listening to him nevertheless?

Woken from my anxious trance, I nod. "Uh, yeah, we should do that."

Partnered by Frank, Gerard hoists Pete over their arms and transports him to the van to ship him towards the only place that can help him more than we can, though we're all unsure of how much more.

Then we're all loaded into the van, and before we can shut the door, Gerard is already taped to the pedal and is speeding ahead, down the mountain, through the trees, into the town, and fear distills the air all throughout the way.

Pete is barely conscious as I whisper a lullaby into his damp hair which used to be so vibrant in hues of black in and hues of metaphors converted to the present circumstances, but now the locks are merely shampooed in hypothermia and tugged until they're dry, though that dryness only transpires when he's dead, so I'm grasping the last bit of life he has if he can't do it for himself.

My stability rocks back in forth with each mile the car travels, rolling over pavement and hitching at the bumps with a brief yelp and the notion that if we don't hurry, Pete could die, and I will be alone henceforth, and maybe I shouldn't be concerned with my isolation, as I've been locked up for a few years already and it won't be much of a change, or better yet because Pete's life is worth so much more than my benefits from it, but we remedy each other, so that phenomenon is more parts mutual than petty.

That remedy will vanish, however, in a matter of minutes because of that fucking ice that had to be so fucking cold, and perhaps it was my fault instead of the ice's for quarreling with Pete right before he fell, so I'm just relying on the manifesto that I fucking hate everything and everyone. Even so, I find it strange that the water with which I love to describe him is the one bound to ruin us in the end, so I suppose it's irony's fault then.

I have quite the knack for irony, chiefly the silence that everyone subconsciously wishes for and crumbles in when it arrives, and I'm just now realizing that the silence is actually death and my two favorite ironies are cooperating with each other.

I shouldn't be desiring that effect, though, and I don't care if it's turning my back on everything I ever strived to achieve, because Pete means too much to my world to dismiss for something as trivial as irony, but he's fucking dying, in case you haven't noticed, and soon I won't have an incentive to deny irony any longer.

However, I've grown to detest it and would much rather believe in the memory of Pete Wentz than find myself praying for the silence to purify me again, and to prove it to my restless mind and harrowing past, I nestle into Pete's hair and cross my fingers that it'll all be over soon for me and nowhere close to it for him.

And it's a bittersweet insomnia, because we're resting, but we're resting in a dull reality and in flushed eyes, and it really means nothing to be asleep when alterations have been made to torture us with the effects of agitation from never being able to repose in a place we could call our homes, because we've been lost for a while now, and every being takes advantage of that with great excitement.

We're never lost when we're together, on the contrary, and I know that I'm about to be thrown back into that void if Pete passes into the grave, so I only grip Pete tightly and prepare to wrestle death when it comes for him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: lmao kids idk what to say
> 
> I'm not even sorry I just don't like happy endings
> 
> (don't worry, though, bc there are 51 chapters in total)
> 
> current vibe: when I went to target and spotted two emos who complimented my twenty one pilots shirt
> 
> ~Duhkoota (that's my hipster name according to the hipster Beque-ah)


	46. can I walk a dog with a twizzler

There is a certain numbness you experience once all is lost, once you’re alone, once the shelves of your life have been twisted inside out in order to find an old relic that disappeared with the memory and hasn’t returned since then, but we’re arguably trying to ignite something out of the carnage.

Not me, though, or at least not now, with the ebony cloaks draped over me burdening any free will that I may or may not have possessed as I wait for Gerard to escort me to the funeral of someone who should’ve survived. He shouldn’t deserve a funeral, be confined to materialism and to the grave, because in many ways he’s still with us, but the people attending don’t understand that concept, no matter how often I plead for them to get it through their dense minds that funerals are for the guilty and the non-believers.

Nevertheless, Gerard is requiring that I visit the funeral of _my_ best friend, not his, and I know that he’s not curdled by the same pain as I am, because he didn’t retain that connection to Pete, but he must be sympathetic, though he’s still knocking at my door at ten o’clock in the morning with a black tie prepared to strangle him — and then me — so maybe a few boundaries have been expanded, though I don’t know in whose favor.

“Patrick, are you ready to go?” The man teeters on his feet, a bit nervous at what my reaction has in store for him and predicting that it’ll be bitter.

“Not at all, but you’re forcing me to attend, so whatever.”

Gerard’s posture curtsies in dejection, displeased by my stubbornness, the same stubbornness that got Pete killed. “I know this is difficult for you, but Pete would appreciate it.”

“Pete is dead,” I bluntly state. “He can’t communicate with us.”

“Well if he were here, he would love to see that you’re honoring him.”

“But he’s not, so he wouldn’t, and he doesn’t need a funeral if he’s here anyway, so what good does it do?”

Gerard stares at me blankly for a moment, invisibly sorting through what to do with me and my annoyingness, and a sigh collides with his windpipe. “Just try your best, yeah?”

I don’t answer.

~~~~~

The disparity between the people at the funeral and my vision of the people at the funeral is astronomical. I had suspected Lindsey would be here, accompanied by Frank, Ryan, and Brendon, sometimes Dallon (it depended on my mood), but none of those people are currently present, and even Gerard has vanished from sight to join his friends.

Their figures are as stunning as ever, whisked in elegant dresses and suits, but their faces have been carved away, hollowed out to construct an array of skulls decked with indistinguishable features that convert the atmosphere to a ghastly grey and render me completely hopeless in finding what I need.

This funeral was a mistake, and I’m glad in saying that I had no part in its planning. That was Ryan, because I guess he just felt responsible for whatever happened to Pete, though it was entirely my fault (I just didn’t own up to it because of the monstrous funeral to come), and because of his frantic repenting, he produced such a horror of an event that no one should really care about, and they don’t, as their friend just died in the domesticated environment of the Caribou cottage when that’s such a rarity, and they’re all still so confused as to how that could’ve transpired instead of accepting that it did and that there’s no solution to death, and there’s no solution to a broken heart, either.

Though I can’t comprehend why these people would suffer from a broken heart anyway, because they weren’t as familiar with Pete as I was with him, and they recognized that, so early on they just left us two alone to do as we may with one another, and they just figured that we were so deeply in love that we drowned at the mere thought of each other. Because of that, they would have no part in our affairs, and they never delved into the majesties of Pete Wentz and all of his traits thoroughly enough to give a single fuck when he died.

No one _ever_ cared about him to give a single fuck, and I did, so I should reign over the decision to hold a funeral or not, but that authority was stripped from me unfairly, and now I have to watch as the scene layers the dismal landscape.

A man centers the stage, skull as hollow as the rest of them, and I identify the man to be none other than Brendon Urie, a Brendon Urie whose charm has been invaded by gasoline and lit on fire until it’s but a bleak ember and his personality is an afterthought. An earthquake conditions his face towards lunacy, and it seems as though he’s being held against his will to perform a never-ending ballad that narrates the terrors of birth through death that may as well be describing him. In his hands, a bow shakes, guided by the fierce strings of a violin as it rocks back and forth to cultivate variegated screams flitting across the sky and commanding the plants all around us to wilt into ashes, but no protests erupt from the crowd. Rather, they’re enjoying every yelp and cry, every plea for mercy emanating from the instrument, and they’re bathing in the devil.

“Isn’t the music magnificent?” a man marvels, leaning a tad too close for my liking, though nonetheless close enough for me to decipher that he’s Ryan Ross, a person who used to be so friendly but now dines to the sound of torture. Doesn’t he understand that what he’s doing is immoral?

“Quite the opposite, actually.”

The decaying man nudges me jokingly, oblivious to my discomfort at everything around me. “Aww, don’t spoil the occasion.”

“The occasion was already spoiled when it was planned.”

Ryan ignores me, then gesturing to the casket in front of the stage with a bony finger. “Look! You can go and see the body!”

I have no idea why he’s so ecstatic at the sight of a dead body, but I should examine it nevertheless, because Pete was _my_ friend, and if Gerard wants me to honor him, perhaps I should know what exactly it is that I’m honoring.

I rise sluggishly to pilgrimage towards Pete’s coffin, Ryan shoving me to speed things up so that he can take his turn, however morbid, at the body, but my feet have imported metal to their gait so that I’m pulling slowly along, and a minute passes before I behold the person dozing in the casket.

Peacefulness consecrates the man’s pallid complexion, the only color threading his lips together as if no one desires his opinion, as if he’s meant to be buried, as if he vocalized an opinion that the people weren’t so keen on and was framed in the perspective of death. While my vampiric skin is the crux of my inauspiciousness, Pete’s is absolutely alluring, like he’s been put to rest when he couldn’t have dreamed of it earlier. I feel like I should be happy for him, but who ever heard of someone to be jealous of a corpse?

The suicidal kids, perhaps, and Pete was one of them, so I presume that there’s good reason for his occupancy here, and I have faith that he considers himself lucky to be dead in this coffin without friends to talk to, because he screwed up. He fucking screwed up in ways that not even he can imagine, and he was confused about it all, because he didn’t quite grasp the extent at which he ruined his own life and mine, too, and he was just so fucking guilty about something he knew nothing about. Maybe he was delusional for being so capricious about his own emotions, but that doesn’t matter when you’re cognizant of the fact that he ran himself over again and again without rest because of whatever it is that was going on in his mind, and not even I could save him.

His heart was as cold as the hypothermia that snatched him away, and I’m sure that they’re best friends now, waltzing around with a poisoned touch as they obtain what they need and aren’t bothered that they just fucking killed it, and there’s no doubt that he’ll never question it, because this is his own personal brand of therapy that not even I can counter, because it’s all just a range of taste, and his happens to border on insanity. I hate that it flaunts itself that way, but I can’t contradict opinions, even if they’re the things that paint ambiguity over my friend’s lips and befuddle me the most, because he had a hell of a lot of opinions that he would share and then prove me incorrect time and time again, and it’s not like I cared much, because he was always right and sensible and everything that I could never be, and it’s tragic that this was only a veneer, that this was just a dose of heroin to soothe a restless mind but could fade just as easily as his optimism.

Pete’s euphoria and depression were just lines that bled into each other until they were blurry messes that only he could decrypt, and that didn’t consent to outside influences that would only nurture him, much against his own perception’s ideas, so there we were, standing at the sidelines for him and waiting for the permission to assist the man whom we held dear, the permission that never rang out and allowed us realize that we weren’t a part of his life at all.

Truth is, he was walking when he was supposed to run, and he’s dead because of it. He’s dead, and I won’t be able to ever linger by his side, around his strawberry fields, in his bed, and perhaps it’s deranged to want to sleep with a corpse, but we all know that’s what he’s always been.

He’s happier now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: did you know that I hate life :')
> 
> hopefully you didn't think this was real because that would be weird if there were skeletons populating the funeral so
> 
> current vibe: when I was at lunch with my mother and I was smirking because of what happens in this fic I'm so mean
> 
> ~Ratkota


	47. corn meal for the holidays

I’ve been tossed into the pit of death and spat back out, and I’m clear in saying that this whole ordeal is more troubling than I would’ve thought.

Yes, not knowing whether your surroundings are real or not is a very dangerous experience, in addition to having the aforementioned surroundings teeming with hollowed skulls and the stench of decay, but the worst part about this is that I’m not certain that this reality is any better than my dream, because in my dream we had already gotten the news over with, but now my friends and I wait in the lobby of a hospital that gives zero fucks about anything other than Pete’s body, and we’re scared shitless at the possibilities of what could happen to him.

Everyone around is retains just the same apprehension, and some are about to be relieved of it, whether that’s upon discovering that their friend is fine or discovering that their friend is dead or some other tragedy that never leaves. Even through this, I don’t know the slightest thing about any one of them, even though we’re mourning in the same position, and they don’t know the slightest thing about me, and we have that in common, so while many people think that they’re unique, we’re all just the same humans destined for devastation, and those small details only contribute to how hard the fall will be. It doesn’t really matter that I don’t know anything about these people, because we’ll all be dead before we hit the ground.

Even Gerard and Lindsey and Frank and Dallon and Ryan and Brendon and everyone with me don’t know everything about my identity, as I don’t know everything about _their_ identity, and maybe it should stay that way, because no one wants to be heartbroken when they can’t hold someone’s hand while falling. It’s more destructive like that, but I’m already being destructed by the anticipation of Pete’s status regarding his declining health.

He doesn’t deserve to die, and I realize that many people will say that over the span of their career in some sort of Christian dialogue, but Pete is everything pure in this world, everything pure that isn’t perfect yet supplies the definition with authority, because purity isn’t about being perfect, rather trooping through your faults, and it’s okay that Pete was struggling, because that’s how it goes with someone like him, yet someone like him is still pure and radiant and everything that I needed, but he’s fucking gone, and now my head is in my hands, and Gerard is trying his best to comfort me amidst the chaos raging inside my mind, and it’s not fucking enough for what I need. It’s will _never_ be enough, because what I need is Pete Wentz, and he is simply not here.

I’ll search for him, then.

“I’m going to see Pete,” I decide, not once looking back at my friends populating the chairs beside me.

“Have the doctors let you in?” Ryan asks, articulating a motherly tone that would usually be awarded to Lindsey, but she’s busy reading a magazine while she stresses about the outcome of Pete’s health.

Beginning to shuffle forward, a quip is trussed to my acerbic demeanor towards these circumstances. “Do you think the doctor’s approval is imperative to me?”

Ryan shakes his head timidly, and I set off to locate my boyfriend, which goes better than I would’ve suspected, as I unearth his hospital room fairly quickly and step towards the window of the door to find a soporific Pete Wentz with a book bonded between his fingers, which he drowsily relinquishes upon seeing the doctor who has made her way into her room before I could snare a chance to.

They’re conversing quite pleasantly, more so than Pete ever would’ve conversed with anyone else, and that leads me to believe that he’s somehow not himself in this moment, that he’s either damaged from the hypothermia or traumatized by revealing his true persona, and I want to help — I really do — but how will I explain my presence here? If Pete’s not himself, who’s to say that he’ll allow me in?

Pete nods for a few repetitions, sprinkled here and there throughout the discussion, and with a sad smile, the doctor elevates to depart the room and leave him to his most likely ill-fated prognosis. The woman acknowledges me with a sole gesture as she passes, and it’s my turn to enter the chambers.

My hands coalesce like I’m a shy schoolgirl being escorted to a dance by some kid who’s probably not fruitful for me, but Pete has aided me more than anyone else, meaning that this shyness shouldn’t exist around him, and I lock it away.

“Are you another doctor?” he inquires, and any clan of butterflies that had been marching through my stomach are now halted in shock.

Brows paralyzed in a narrow line, I attempt to make sense of what my friend is asking. “I’m sorry?”

“Are you here to check up on me for another test or something?” he clarifies, though I’m still as confused as I’ll ever be.

“No, I’m Patrick. Don’t you remember me?”

“Excuse me, but I don’t know who you are,” Pete duplicates, becoming nervous at my existence here. “I think you need to leave. The doctors said I’m not supposed to invite strangers in here.”

“But I’m not a stranger—”

Hands whirled in a tremor, Pete’s voice jars with indomitable anxiousness, and I should regret ever speaking at all. “I said you need to leave!”

I know this can’t be occurring, but I know this can’t be a dream, because the funeral consumed all of my imagination’s power, so I have to confront the notion that this is real life, that everything I worked so hard to build is just eroding within my fingers, but there’s no use in objecting to Pete’s request, because I love him and want him to be happy, and I can’t stick him with someone he doesn’t know, a someone who is pining for him with every glance, so I surrender.

Recognizing faintly that all is lost, I journey towards the door with the hopes of abandoning him forever so I can minimize the pain, and to my lover I whisper a gentle “fuck you” before throwing him to amnesia.

I wind up dialing the number of someone I never would’ve predicted I’d need to telephone, but drastic times call for drastic measures, and immediately when the person picks up the device, I’m ready. “Come and get your fucking kid,” I spit into the microphone before Joe can form coherent thoughts against me.

“Why? What did he do this time?” He’s more panicked than disappointed, as Pete can usually take care of himself and doesn’t ever come home for assistance, so this must be astronomical for Joe to hear.

“That isn’t important, because he won’t even remember you anyway, but you’re taking care of him, so get your lazy ass over here and actually do something with your life in order to save his.”

“Patrick, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Drive to the Caribou Hospital and pick up Pete,” I reinforce, an acute stream of anger disparaging any sign of human sentience for something sharper, something cunning.

Digressing with the blade of a sigh stigmatizing his lungs, Joe whines like he’s a teenager rather than a twenty-two year-old, a legal adult. “I knew he shouldn’t have gone with you.”

“Just shut the fuck up, Joe,” I bark, moldering my foot into the tile of the hospital corridor. “You didn’t give a shit about Pete, so don’t pretend you know what’s best for him.”

Joe’s tone slopes down into mishap, repeating my intentions in a degrading manner. “Yet you’re calling me to retrieve this kid.”

I laugh one cloud out of my trachea, enough to convey my amusement with Joe’s skepticism and his belief that his argument is anywhere near valid. “I’m giving you a second chance with him. Now don’t mess it up.”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” the man grits, suddenly enraged

“I could say the same thing about you, Joe Trohman, but that still doesn’t help the fact that you have a kid on your hands, so hurry up.” I punch down the button to hang up, cutting Joe’s protests a bit short to return to my friends in the waiting room and deliver the news that Pete isn’t the person they know anymore, that they’ve lost a friend that they knew nothing about but acted as though they cared, and they’re definitely not entitled to the news, but they’ll demand it anyway, and I’m far too tired to riot against them any longer. They should be warranted a break from my stubbornness.

Dallon will comprehend that hypothermia can fuck someone up more than they fucked themselves up, that amnesia is bound to happen in severe cases, that Caribou fosters one of the coldest climates in America and is prone to victims of its sting, and he’ll comprehend that it was me who was actually fucked up by the event, so he’ll try to hug me and comfort me and assure me that everything will be okay, but there’s a fucking gap in my heart, and he’s not the adequate puzzle piece to fit in there, but he’s endeavoring nonetheless, with that garnet simper of disquiet below those fretting sapphire eyes, and he’s expecting an answer, not because he gives a shit about Pete, but because he’s scouring me for an aperture to my heart.

He won’t succeed, though, because I’m not even sure that I possess a heart anymore after having it torn from me at the declaration that Pete has no clue that I was previously his boyfriend, and the shock provides me with a bit of solace to reminisce on the phenomenon that I feel nothing but blankness, so maybe an absent heart is better for me.

An absent heart will console me when it’s time to inform my friends that Pete is forever wasted, and here they are, posing in front of me in the same blue chairs they were in thirty minutes ago, and my duty has been employed.

“We can go home,” I announce, eyes pooled by my feet. “He doesn’t remember us.”

And for some reason, no one resists — not on their rise from the chair, not out the door to the hospital, not through the parking lot towards the car, not in the dreary trip back to the cottage, where we can guarantee that we’ll be ripped to shreds.

The silence is a shot of liquor, and we’re out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: okay I had originally intended for Pete to die, so it's not as bad as you think gosh
> 
> current vibe: when I went to an Italian ice place and was bombarded by white girls
> 
> ~Darkota


	48. fight me in the sewer

“So I guess we won’t ever see each other again,” Dallon notes, wobbling back and forth on his feet with extremities poking into his pockets awkwardly.

Gerard is packing the van with Lindsey’s suitcase, proceeding with his and then mine to grant time for me and Dallon to say our goodbyes, and he’s equipping himself for a bumpy ride back to New Jersey, while Ryan and Brendon are about an hour down the road to Newark with their own luggage in their odd vehicle that should only fit a cat yet has much more aptitude than people would expect, and once Gerard finishes loading the car, I’m forced to acknowledge Dallon.

“I guess not.” Nodding, I add, “We had some horrible times together, so at least those will be over.”

“You’re blunt as always” is his chuckle

A smile instruments my lips higher, and I offer my hand for the man to shake. “How about we leave on good terms, yeah?”

Dallon accepts my hand, kissing it like an old-fashioned royal, and with a laugh, he’s off on his way far from me, and I know I’ll be doing better.

“Are you ready to go?” Gerard inquires and swallows my shoulder with his touch, guiding me towards his van before I can respond, because he knows that I won’t be able to after all that’s happened this Christmas break.

I’m okay with that, though, because he’s always had my best interest in mind, even when I hated him for it and didn’t understand that he was always considering me in his actions, and it’s nice to have an unwavering friend, especially after I just lost the one who loved me so dearly to something as worthless as amnesia.

Pete’s gone, however, and I’ll have to register that through my brain soon enough, but for now, all I know is that something is absent from my life and that I want it back.

~~~~~

I’m not quite prepared fully to see my mother again, not after she dropped that bomb of news on me while I was still recovering from a fucking seizure, and now there’s also that shitstorm of Gabe Saporta wallowing in my house and claiming that it’s his own when he could be kicked out at any moment, if not by my mom then by me, and while that may only last for a few hours, at least until my mother notices that something is missing, it’ll be productive enough to soothe my qualms about this “psychologist” guy.

What’s missing with me is Pete fucking Wentz, and he won’t be back. Perhaps returning to my home in Newark would’ve been less bothersome if he were here with me, but for all I know he could still be at the hospital, abandoned by Joe, and it could be my fault for leaving him there. There’s no one to portray the fact that he left _me_ with forgetfulness, but they won’t ask about that, so it’s unimportant.

We have been doomed from the start, with that measly panic attack in the Belleville Child Development Center that Pete happened to spy and take action upon, yet he persisted in loving me despite my many faults and anxieties and fears, and we fucking messed up in the end. We could’ve gone strong, but we didn’t, because there are simply these points that are unavoidable and are bound to kill us one way or another, but we were young and reckless and didn’t care about any of them, so where we are is essentially our own doing.

I realize that if Pete and I continued our relationship, people would ask how he’s faring all the time, and I would have to lie and tell them that he is just splendid, but that’s not exactly a lie, because I never really knew how well he was, and now I do. I know that he’s forgotten about everything we went through, and I’m not with him to foster a plague that’ll just bury him again. He’s really mending himself, and he doesn’t need me anymore.

When you are someone like Pete Wentz, when you are someone with potential, a candle perhaps, people will light you so that they can watch you burn and then replace you with someone stronger, but I challenge everyone to dare themselves into replacing that candle with them and only them, just better versions of the same spark, and that’s what my companion is going to do, for he’s struck his memories with amnesia and has become whole in his own mind again.

Because he’s always been whole in my mind, but he would always contradict that phenomenon in honor of his own pity for himself and hatred of anything wonderful to be derived from his magnificence that’s ostensibly only obvious to me and shunned by Pete.

None of that’s really significant anymore, on the contrary, because all I have is my mother and Gabe Saporta in the frequent moments at home, huddled under blankets on the laptop as I scroll through blog posts of people who don’t know the tiniest detail about me, and I like it that way, because it’s comforting, but sheltering my own psychologist in the house that I grew up in is beyond my tolerance, and I soon won’t be comfortable any longer.

And there he is, chopping vegetables to stir into a soup or something equally as suburban intended to poison us so he can steal our possessions like he stole my mother’s heart and my sanity, and he’s so nonchalant about it all, attention zoomed in on the foods to craft the potion with unmatched precision and knock us out more efficiently.

“Ah, Patrick!” Dr. Saporta exclaims upon seeing me, hands bouncing in the air in an unnecessary gesture, unnecessary mostly because we both hate each other vigorously and aren’t ever excited to see the opposite person.

Glaring at the man wickedly, I tighten my clutch around the straps to my bag. “What are you doing here, rat?”

“You must’ve heard that your mom and I are dating.” He appears genuinely miffed by the assumption that my mother never informed me of this information, but I dismiss him.

“All too well,” I snarl, tossing my bag onto the stairs for further transportation to my room. “My mother intruded into my hospital room while I was healing from a seizure and told me that you’re getting all lovey dovey together. What a fantastic Christmas treat.”

My psychologist pauses his duty of slicing vegetables into minuscule pieces to pose a burdensome question. “Why don’t you like me?”

I pivot ferociously, teeth raining down on each other with the adhesive of anger. “Because you’re fucking shit, Saporta, and you don’t belong here.”

The man’s brow fondus, somehow surprised that I absolutely abhor him. “And why is that?”

“You’re my psychologist — and a terrible one at that. Your opinions are only constructed out of sophism, but I see through it, and I know that you’re complete and utter trash.” Before he can protest, I sprint up the stairs and into my room where I can be safe, but I bump into my mother on the way.

“Patrick, you’re back!” she squeals, bagging me in a constricting embrace and only releasing me after ten painful seconds. “I was thinking that we could do something together.”

“Sorry, I have plans.” I seal the door to my room so that she can’t pester me further, only allowing her to shout things through the wood, such as asking whom I’m doing the activities with, but I say nothing, instead sliding over to my bookshelf in search of the exact hydrogen peroxide that chauffeured me through my hectic post-traumatic stress disorder.

Maybe it’s a better friend to me than Pete ever was, and maybe I shouldn’t be saying such things right after he just lost himself and his identity to amnesia, but it’s always there for me, so I might as well utilize it for my own purpose and fuck the consequences, because the upside of Pete being gone is that he can’t reprimand me for being so dangerous towards myself, arguing that these precautions exist to protect me, but hydrogen peroxide is the _only_ thing that protects me, not those precautions, so I’ll do as I please with it.

With that all figured out, a bottle of the substance customizes my hand to its shape with the hopes that it’ll be employed for its traditional role in cleansing me from germs and obsessions and everything that Dallon did to me two years ago that isn’t even connected to him anymore after all of the complications, and it will receive its wish.

The cap to the bottle flakes away onto the floor for me to neglect, and the only thing that matters right now is the liquid sloshing against the sides as it struggles to keep itself contained, but its plans are foiled when I press a single drop to my skin.

It’s a beautiful affliction, an affliction I desire to experience more often, so in a reaction to that, I gradually increase the waterfall’s power until my lids are closed behind the current of peroxide lapping against me, until I’m coddled by a desert, and an old friend arrives for the grand farewell.

_You made it, psycho._

And I just laugh, because I really did.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: it's been a good run, famlettes (but there's an epilogue, so we're not quite done yet)
> 
> I s2g I cut out two chapters because I just wanted to finish this thing but like it has too many plot holes due to devastation by a shitstorm that rolled in when I started this in January so I'm sorry about that (patrick was kind of inaccurate, so was pete wtf) ANYWAY
> 
> current vibe: having a chat with myself about petekey at 10:30 at night
> 
> ~Dartota


	49. Epilogue

Throughout all of this tumult, I’m back where I started this journey — out on the streets of Newark, New Jersey on my way to the familiar coffee shop who has always hosted me and my pills with no questions asked, and I like it that way, because it offers a reprieve from the constant mourning I’ve endured in the past two months, and I don’t have to feel guilty about taking care of myself.

I haven’t visited this place since the day after Pete and I confessed to our difficulties with simply surviving, and now this store represents much more than it had previously because of it, as we made it through the night without falling out of line with one another, and we even managed to share time afterwards.

However, Pete is gone, and the coffee shop only serves as a reminder of him, cold and nostalgic and completely unaware of what it’s doing to me, what it’s paining me with, but I’m going anyway, because Dr. Saporta, now unfortunately my father, is requiring me to do so. _Apparently_ it’s not normal to drink hydrogen peroxide, at least not on purpose, and after disobeying my psychologist’s laws, I’m being forced to consume more and more medication each time I step out of my boundaries and challenge the institution that’s molding me into this monster, this robot of a being, and I personally don’t think that’s fair to me or to anyone who believes in morality, but where are they now? Not defending me from these horrors, but I suppose it’s not their job to defend me anyway. They prefer to wear the invisible badge.

It’s ironic how I tried to end my life with the same thing that saved it, but irony is a sweet suicide that’s always been just within my grasp, so I snagged it deftly and claimed it for my own, and in that moment, I didn’t really care what I was doing, so shit was bound to happen.

Except I failed my mission, and I’ve been alive for agonizing days without medication, and when I began to express my hatred for everything, Dr. Saporta only interpreted it as a sign to put me back on those blasphemous pills, so I’m back in that coffee shop with ambiguous intentions, and I’m abhorring every moment.

“May I take your order?” a person cries.

Every sign points me towards the exit, but the man’s voice is too arresting to deny the fact that I want to stay longer, even ambivalently, and I cautiously shuffle towards the counter to meet the person calling me, a shy smile grooming my face.

It’s that same Indus River head of locks that I fell in love with a few weeks back, and it’s the same Indus River head of locks that I’m falling in love with right now, over and over again like a continuous cycle, and it’s the only cycle that never grows monotonous after repetition. I am fully cognizant of his enchantment, and I am fully cognizant that I can’t resist it.

“Yes, thank you.” I scan the options for complex coffees and hot chocolates and everything in between like I always do, but the abrupt inspiration for a variegated selection disports my decision, and a familiar choice finds its way towards me. “I’ll have a pumpkin spice latte please.”

A bemused smirk dices the worker’s lips, but he nevertheless hurries to his work on the coffee machine, a cup hover over the entrance as he comments, “I didn’t take you to be a white girl.”

“No.” I shake my head, tuning a smile to the floor and then flicking my eyes back towards him. “It’s for a friend.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: this is it I'm fucking done
> 
> have a nice life I'm outta here
> 
> current vibe: you fuckers who stayed around til the end like wtf
> 
> okay but if you want to share with your friends so that they may also suffer, then that's gr9 and thank you
> 
> ~Dakota


End file.
